Journey To Refuge
by gwmmbm
Summary: An alternative end to the Earth's Children books by Jean Auel that begins around the time that Ayla and Jondalar arrive back at the Zelandonii at the end of 'Plains of Passage' and largely ignores Books 5 & 6.
1. Chapter 1

Journey To Refuge: Chapter One

Old Mamut knew he was dying. He lay on a thick layer of animal furs on his sleeping platform in the Mammoth Hearth of the Lion Camp. Except for Crozie and Wymez, he had the entire structure to himself. The rest of Lion Camp had left for the Summer Meeting and Mammoth Hunt a week earlier, eager to join the annual gathering of Mamutoi camps, but sorry to have to leave the three members of their own camp behind. Mamut's age had finally caught up with him, and the previous winter had not been kind. Far too weak to even consider travelling, he had finally had to insist that Lion Camp go to the Meeting when the co-leaders Talut and Tulie offered to stay and skip it this year. Crozie and Wymez decided to stay as well due to their respective ailments, and they made it clear that they would do everything they could to keep Mamut comfortable. Talut finally decided to go, and the entire camp made their farewells before they left, knowing that it was unlikely Mamut would survive the summer season.

Wymez and Crozie had stayed outside the entrance of the winter camp for several hours after the rest of Lion Camp left that morning, talking about many of the things they had seen and experienced in their lives. Wymez recounted, once again, the high points of the ten-year journey he made in his youth. The rigors of that journey were now apparent in his posture and his walk. Ankle, knee and hip joints, worn of most or all of their cartilage, made moving about difficult. Hunting and long journeys were now a part of his past. Over the years, he had come to enjoy the company of the once-disagreeable Crozie. The woman was very old now, and had little left in her life save her children and grandchildren, but she retained a great fondness for reminiscing and gossip that Wymez now found to be a comfort.

As she and Wymez spoke that day, both of them recalled the all-too-brief time that their lives had overlapped with the strange young woman named Ayla. Despite the few months that their lives overlapped, both recalled many, many events – years' worth, it seemed to them. The two horses, her wolf, the men who loved her, the lives she saved, including Crozie's granddaughter, and the incredible healing skills she possessed. Both of them wished Ayla were now present to give them any comfort she could. Wymez' joints ached constantly, and Crozie was experiencing an internal pain that seemed to grow a bit worse each day. Willow bark tea had long ago lost its effectiveness for both of them, and Crozie had reached a point in her life where she was looking forward to her return to the Mother, if only for the relief from pain it would provide. As they continued to speak into the lengthening daylight, Mamut listened.

He too had been thinking, meditating about, and even dreaming of Ayla more frequently over the past weeks and months. As he moved closer and closer to his own impending meeting with Mut, he was possessed of a great and growing desire to know what had become of the adopted daughter of his hearth. Had she fulfilled her obvious promise? He had never met anyone else, before or after Ayla, who seemed to be so naturally and abundantly gifted. He would have dearly loved for her to have stayed and lived out her life with him and the Mamutoi, but he knew, both then and now, that the Mother had other plans for Ayla.

When Mamut felt his inner spirit begin rising within him, he knew his time was near. With the last flush of his health and energy he resolved to take one last Search…the greatest search of his life. He rose from his bed platform and looked through the various herbs, roots and mushrooms he kept on hand for his spiritual journeys. He carefully separated out semuta, datura, and a variety of other plants he had used successfully in the past. "I've never used them in this combination, or in these quantities, before" he mused, "but then, this is the one Search I don't plan to return from." He prepared them each in accordance with his long years of experience, and used his considerable intuitive powers to decide upon the proportions of each to take.

He heard Wymez and Crozie continue to reminisce outside the lodge, and he decided not to disturb them. It would be better to embark on this last journey alone, he thought, without the possibility that one of them would interfere by trying to bring his spirit back to his body before his search was completed. He wrapped himself in warm furs and meditated for a brief time, concentrating on his purpose, and framing his final request to Mut. Mamut intended to stretch his last Search as far as humanly possible, and perhaps, with Mut's aid, even farther. He would begin, as he usually did, by sending his spirit out from Lion Camp and surveying the immediate environs as if he were searching for nearby game to hunt. He would then try to find and follow the members of Lion Camp on their way to the Summer Meeting. They should still be travelling, but be within a day or two of their destination. If that was successful, he intended to travel as high as his spirit might fly to obtain an eagle's-eye view of the world, then follow the Great Mother River to its beginnings. He recalled Jondalar's stories of crossing a small plateau glacier near the source of the Great Mother River, and that his people, the Zelandonii, lived a short journey west of there.

If Mamut were successful in accomplishing all of that, he would try to locate Ayla. Mamut wasn't sure what he would, or could, do in the event he found her, but he would satisfied just to know where her life had taken her to this point in time. Did she still have her animals? Was she mated to Jondalar? Did they have children? Was she a Mamut, or a Zelandonii? His great desire to know these things crystalized his thinking and he made his final plea to Mut: "Great Mother of All, I have spent my many long years serving you to the very best of my abilities. In all that time, I have asked for your help, aid, and comfort on numerous occasions. But always, my pleas for your assistance were for others, not for myself. I feel you calling my spirit to you now, and I wish to make a single plea for myself. Before my spirit returns to you, Mother of All, I wish to see the entire world as it is, or at least as much of it as you in your wisdom see fit to grant to me. Most of all, I'd love to see the daughter of my hearth, your gifted child Ayla. I am prepared to leave this life after this journey and do whatever bidding you may choose to make of my spirit, in Your service."

With those thoughts, Mamut wrapped himself in his finest furs, set himself up in his most comfortable meditating spot, and ingested the mixture of powerful hallucinogens, potent drugs, and mind-altering substances that he had already prepared. In his weakened state, on an empty stomach, and fully relaxed and ready for his final journey, the effects were immediate and profound. He found himself outside the lodge looking down on Crozie and Wymez as they watched the setting sun in silence. Bidding them a silent goodbye, he followed the setting sun westward. In a matter of moments, or so it seemed to him, he came upon the members of the Lion Camp. They were bedding down for one last night of sleeping under the stars before they would reach Eagle Camp, where the summer meeting was being held this year. Mamut paused momentarily, wondering if he could, or should, try to somehow contact Talut and Tulie, the leaders of Lion Camp. As soon as he thought of that, however, he felt himself being pulled up higher and higher into the sky until he could barely make out even the fires of the travelers. At that precise moment, a bright meteor hurled across the sky leaving a long-lasting trail that continued to shine for several minutes as it faded.


	2. Chapter 2

Journey To Refuge: Chapter Two

"Did you see that, Tulie?" Talut asked as he stared up into the sky. Tulie and several other Lion Camp members spoke up simultaneously that they had seen the brilliant falling star as well. Knowing that such spectacles in the sky could be portents of both good and evil, Talut suddenly found himself feeling uneasy, and wishing that Mamut was present to help interpret such a significant celestial display. As if she read his mind, Tulie asked: "Do you believe that old Mamut will still be alive when we return, Talut?" "No" he said with flat finality, "I'm amazed he remained with us through this past winter and spring. Even I sometimes feel that I can hear the Mother calling for his spirit, and I think Mamut will have returned to Her breast before we return." The other members of Lion Camp laid in their sleeping furs, each thinking of Mamut in their own ways. Danug spoke next: "Do you think that the falling star tonight meant anything in regard to the journey that Ranec, Latie and I will be taking after the Summer Meeting?"

Talut and Nezzie looked at each other and shifted uneasily in their furs. Talut saw familiar tears welling up in Nezzie's eyes. He could tell from the silent plea on her face that Nezzie wanted him to offer Danug an interpretation that would discourage him from taking his long-planned journey to find the Zelandonii, and Ayla and Jondalar. She had hoped that Danug would grow out of his desire to take a long journey as he grew into manhood, but the young man remained firm in his intention to have his own great adventure before settling down. She had gradually grown to accept Danug's plans, but when Ranec, and then Latie, had announced that they would join Danug, she felt as if her very heart was being torn from her chest. Ranec, her dark-skinned adopted son, she could understand. His father Wymez had made a great journey in his youth, and was now in failing health. And Ranec had never gotten over the crushing disappointment of losing Ayla to Jondalar, the blond-haired Zelandonii man who had first claim on her. Ranec had tied the knot with Tricie a year later, but they had scattered the hearth of that union within a matter of months, despite the joy provided by Tricie's daughter who was so clearly of Ranec's spirit.

When Latie stated her intention to go along with Danug and Ranec, Nezzie and Talut had forbidden it. Tulie, and most of the rest of Lion Camp, had tried to dissuade her as well. But Latie was years into her womanhood now, and had developed into both a formidable hunter and a budding Healer. She was very much a woman who kept her own counsel. Latie had been completely infatuated with Ayla's animals, particularly the horses, and had a great desire to see Ayla and her animals again. She had tried, on several occasions, to raise horses of her own that had all come to bad ends. The first colt she captured was simply too young, and couldn't survive long without its mother. A second colt was injured during its capture, and Latie eventually had put it down out of compassion. The Lion Camp was surprised when Latie insisted on burying the horse, and she even marked its grave. Mamut had asked the Mother to look after the young horse in the next world, not knowing whether such a ceremony would carry any weight or not. Her final attempt to raise and train horses resulted in the capture of two colts. Both were a little older, however, and resisted all attempts to train or ride them. Both Latie and Danug had suffered numerous injuries, mostly minor, in their attempts to tame the two horses. Her experiments with domesticating horses finally ended during the longest, coldest, bleakest winter that anyone, even old Mamut, could remember ever having to endure. Food ran out before spring finally ended that cruel winter, and the two young horses had been killed for food. Although Latie understood the decision, and even eventually agreed that it had to be done, after her grief had been spent it had done nothing but intensify her desire to tame horses, and she became convinced that only a visit to Ayla would allow her to learn the secrets of controlling animals.

Talut smiled forlornly at Nezzie, and said to Danug: "I don't know if that falling star was a portent regarding your journey or not, but I wish you would reconsider your decision. It's time you settled down, brought a woman to your hearth, and had children, Danug. Your place is with the Mamutoi, and you are destined to become a leader one day." Danug frowned at the all-too-familiar refrain, but restrained himself as he spoke: "Talut, I know you, Nezzie, and the rest of Lion Camp want me to stay, but this is something I have to do for myself. If it helps bring you any comfort, I believe that I will return from my journey one day. I am much like Jondalar…just as he felt so strongly a Zelandonii that he turned down our offer to adopt him into the Mamutoi, I feel strongly that I will always be Mamutoi and that I will therefore not settle down permanently with any other people." He was silent for a few moments and then continued: "I have not asked either Ranec or Latie to follow me on this journey, although I welcome their company and will not try to discourage them either. Both have told me of their reasons for wanting to join me, and I think their reasons are both valid and important."

Ranec and Latie remained silent. Both had tried to explain their reasons for wanted to join Danug in seeking out the Zelandonii on many occasions to the Lion Camp. Both were determined to go, and neither felt the need to explain themselves any further. Talut, Nezzie and Tulie had tried to convince all three of them, most especially Latie, not to go on a long, difficult, dangerous journey on many occasions, to no avail. It seemed to them that the world was becoming a more dangerous place. Not only were the winters becoming longer and colder, but reports of clashes between Mamutoi and flatheads seemed to be multiplying. For some reason there seemed to suddenly be more flatheads in the region than anyone could remember. And after the schism that had developed at a prior Mamutoi summer meeting regarding Rydag, Ayla, and Ayla's mixed son, it seemed that relations even among and between various Mamutoi camps and individuals were becoming more hostile. Last, but not least, Lion Camp was going to feel like a considerably smaller camp without the three young adults, particularly with the impending losses of Mamut, Crozie and Wymez as well. Nezzie shuddered as she looked up again at the fading remnants of the fallen star. She, for one, was convinced that it meant that no one should be journeying to distant lands anytime soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Journey To Refuge: Chapter Three

As Mamut's searching spirit continued to be drawn up into the heavens, he became convinced that his journey in this life was at an end and that he was about to meet the Mother. He felt a keen sense of regret that he had gotten no farther on his search, but he was fully prepared for his death. The Great Mother, however, was not done with him yet. From his great vantage point high above the Earth he could see the landscape clearly in all directions. His spirit-sight was not impeded by the darkness. He saw the shining ribbon of the Great Mother River along her entire length; numerous mountain ranges in all directions; endless plains and grasslands inhabited by untold numbers of animals of every kind, and most impressive of all, the great ice sheets spreading south from their icy heartland all across the northern lands. As he looked upon the astonishing tableaux beneath him, he was granted a further vision. He watched as the great northern glaciers advanced and retreated many times over numberless years. He witnessed the arrivals of various forms of man, all unrecognizable to him until he saw flatheads - - the Clan - - enter into the lands below in the distant past. He saw then that the Clan had lived in what were now the homelands, hunting grounds and territories of his own people, the "Others" as the Clan described them, for thousands upon thousands of years before modern humans arrived and began displacing them.

Mamut quickly understood that, before the Others had arrived, the Clan people had moved freely with the glaciers; migrating south when the glaciers advanced, and returning to the northern lands as the glaciers retreated. He saw that the Clan were superbly adapted to such variables, and that they had first claim upon the land. While Mamut rejoiced over being shown the vision, he did not yet understand why the Mother granted him this gift of sight. As he watched the glaciers advance and retreat one more time, he realized he was moving back towards the present. He saw the glaciers begin to advance once more in his present time, and he finally saw the purpose of this vision. He saw how the glaciers were now advancing, rapidly and in many places at once, as the cold deepened in the North and the range of livable areas moved steadily south. He saw the northern Clans following their age-old memories and beginning to migrate south, in large numbers, in advance of those mile high sheets of ice.

Although their memories told them to head south, their way was now blocked in many places by the newly arrived "Others". Mamut could see that conflicts were inevitable as large numbers of northern Clan peoples returned to their ancient southern lands. But instead of finding empty caves and hunting grounds rich with game and edible foods that their memories told them were there, the Clan peoples were finding those caves already inhabited, and those hunting grounds already occupied, by the Others. And Mamut could sense that the overwhelming majority of the "Others", including even his own Mamutoi people, would not welcome the presence of large numbers of flatheads, or the strain that such new numbers would put on the natural resources in their areas. Indeed the recent long, cruel winter had reminded the "Others" of just how fragile those resources were. Something had to give, and Mamut sensed it would be the Clan that suffered the most dearly.

Mamut felt his spirit descending back towards the Earth and believed that he would now be allowed to continue his spiritual quest to find Ayla. But as he travelled he noticed a growing light all about him; a luminous, glowing fog that began to blot out the details of the world. He felt his body, that now seemed so incredibly far away but to which he was still tied, begin to die. His motion seemed to stop, and for a long moment Mamut simply existed in the light. He then saw a figure approaching him out of the glowing mists. Believing that he was about to meet the Mother in all her perfect glory, Mamut was perplexed when the figure resolved itself into the shape of a man of the Clan. But this man was anything but perfect. He was missing an eye, had a withered arm, and limped badly. But the fierce intellect and overwhelming love emanating from this man's one good liquid eye immediately informed Mamut that he was in the presence of someone who was far more than the sum of his crippled parts.

The Clan man stood for a moment scrutinizing Mamut, and Mamut had the distinct impression that this oddly misshapen man shared his knowledge of the catastrophic changes that were on the way for all of Earth's Children, and most particularly his own Clan peoples. He turned and started to shuffle away from Mamut and into the glowing fog of light. When Mamut did not follow, he turned and moved his one good hand in a series of rapid gestures that Mamut did not understand, but which he heard in his mind as clearly as speech say: "Come. She will need our help - - both of us - - very soon." Mamut started forward but asked: "Who? The Great Mother of All"? He was astonished when this man of the Clan shook his head no and replied: "Ayla".


	4. Chapter 4

Journey To Refuge: Chapter Four

Guban and Yorga walked across the floor of their comfortable cave towards a hearth partially hidden behind an outcropping of rock. Guban had recently been elevated to leader of his cave, and he desired to confer with his Clan's mog-ur, Trok. Yorga, his beautiful, blond-haired second woman, had proven herself over and over as a valuable resource to such consultations and Guban frequently brought her with him. She brought up useful points, and asked penetrating questions, always in the most respectful and feminine manner so as to avoid any hint of overreaching her woman's role in the Clan. Her views were frequently from her female point of view, of course, but she also brought up other useful thoughts and ideas that frequently surprised both Guban and the mog-ur. Guban attributed her perceptiveness as being a natural part of what he considered to be her extraordinary intelligence, and that was one of the reasons he had decided to bring her back with him several years ago from her own cave. Trok, for his part, believed that her unusual qualities arose from her knowledge and use of various plants, herbs and other natural substances that she was constantly experimenting with. Both of the men thought it best to keep such discussions among the three of them private from the other members of their small, but growing, Clan. Therefore they almost always met at Trok's hearth, which was somewhat isolated in an antechamber off of the main room of the cave they inhabited. Guban ostensibly brought Yorga along to serve the two men as they sat for long hours, keeping them supplied with food, water and anything else they needed, and he occasionally sent her off through the cave to fetch one thing or another to maintain that pretense. Even so, Guban always positioned himself so that he could see anyone who tried to approach them well before they got close enough to see Yorga, so that no one would see how thoroughly she was integrated into their discussions. Such a display would be…upsetting, to say the least, to both the men and women of his Clan.

"Trok, I have been thinking about this past winter" gestured Guban after briefly greeting the mog-ur. Both men liked each other well enough, although both knew that Guban had only ascended to the leadership position, instead of Trok's brother Boran, because Boran had been seriously crippled in a hunting accident the previous summer. Still, even Trok agreed that the best alternative to Boran had been Guban, and he therefore bore his new leader no ill will. "It has been a hard winter, one of the worst we've experienced since coming to this cave" agreed Trok.

"I'm concerned that this winter has been more than just an unusually long and cold winter" continued Guban, "I've spent some time consulting with my own memories, and it seems to me that this was the worst winter in a very, very long time." Yorga shifted her posture just enough to let the men know that she wished to speak, if they felt it important enough for her to do so. If they did not signal for her to speak, she would remain silent. Guban caught Trok's subtle, almost imperceptible nod, and touched Yorga on her arm: "You may speak". "I know that both of you are already aware of this" she began, always conscious of couching her gestures about her own thoughts and questions in the most submissive ways she could, "but this winter has just been the hardest one of a long string of bad winters." She paused for a moment, then continued: "The concerns of the females are, of course, of only small importance in such matters, but all of the women are complaining about how much more difficult it has become in recent years to forage for food, and to prepare and store enough of it for the longer winters. Children are going hungry, and nursing mothers are losing their milk earlier than anyone can remember. I think that this is something more than just one or two bad winters."

Guban grunted his approval in such a way that it also signaled to Yorga that she had been heard and to cease speaking for the moment. He was pleased that her observations coincided with his own. Not only had the prime hunting season been gradually shortening, but there had been a dramatic shift in the numbers and types of animals in their region away from warmer-weather species and towards those animals best equipped to survive the worsening winters. But his gravest concerns had arisen from a trip he had made the past summer to the north. He had intended to use it as a trading mission and to inform some of the more distant northern caves that the location of the next Clan Gathering had been changed, but instead he discovered that some of the caves farther north had already been driven to a crisis point by increasingly harsh and cold weather. Two of the northernmost caves were already empty, and a third was preparing to move south, when he had arrived. And most of the other northern caves were at least in the early discussion stages regarding the possibility of moving towards the warmer lands that their memories told them existed to the south where their ancestors had sought refuge from glacial winters in the far distant past. Simply talking to the members of those caves had ignited Guban's own memories of past migrations that his ancestors had made as the vast mountains of ice that lay to the north had advanced and receded over the millennia.

Now, sitting in his own cave, he desired his mog-ur's help in exploring their own cave's collective Clan memories regarding those long ago migrations. He was troubled by many questions. How long did the people in past wait before moving? Did the cold winters ever return to normal after just a few hard years, or once the harsher weather began, did it continue and worsen for many, many years? Were the people forced out of their caves in one calamitous season, or was there a more gradual, orderly worsening of winters over a number of seasons? He knew they would head south if the decision to move was made, but exactly where…southeast? Southwest? Where could he expect to find the best caves and hunting grounds? Guban needed more guidance than his own memories could provide because he did not come from a long line of leaders - - his leadership of this cave was more the result of accident and timing than his own heritage. "Trok, can you perform a ceremony that will take some of us back to the memories of the last time the ice mountains moved towards us and forced the Clans to head towards warmer caves in the south?" he asked. Yorga again shifted her posture indicating a desire to speak, but for the moment Guban ignored her.

Although Trok did not possess the power that the legendary Mog-Ur One-Eye did to take minds back to the very beginnings of the Clan's existence, he did possess the memories, and the abilities, to guide a select few to specific memory traces. He had to pick who was to be included in such ceremonies with care, not only selecting those whose ancestors gave them the best chance of having the required memories, but also limiting the number of minds he transported back in search of the more distant memories because he was the only one who could guide their minds back through the black void that had to be traversed during such spirit travels. Such spiritual journeys were always fraught with peril, both to the bodies and the minds of those who participated. He meditated for a few minutes, then gestured: "Yes, I believe that I can. I would want such a journey to include you, my brother Boran who would have been leader, and perhaps several other hunters who have had ancestors who held leadership positions in the past."

Yorga moved subtly closer to Guban, and he saw that she had momentarily begun to actually reach out to him to touch his arm, before restraining herself and quickly drawing her hand back to her own breast. "She must want to speak very badly for her to betray herself with such a gesture," Guban thought, and wondered what could be so important to her. She knew that Clan women have no say in such spiritual ceremonies, and were forbidden from participating by long Clan tradition against being even peripherally involved, with the lone exception of the medicine woman who prepared the special root used by the men. And although Yorga knew a great deal about certain plants and herbs, she was not his cave's medicine woman. But Yorga was indeed in turmoil. She had not one, but two things she wanted to tell Guban and Trok about the topic under discussion. First, that she desperately wanted to be included in such a ceremony despite the Clan traditions; and two, that during one of her recent experiments on herself using a new combination of certain herbs and mushrooms, she had given herself vivid dreams and visions of past lives that she believed were based on her own memories. One of those visions had involved an ancestor whom she believed had been part of a large cave of Clan people who had fled the great wall of ice to warmer southern caves sometime in the distant past. Her indecisiveness in asking her mate to allow her to speak was not about whether or not to tell him about her experiences, but whether to tell him alone or in front of Trok. Yorga thought that Guban would most likely at least consider her request to participate in such a ceremony. He had proven to be remarkably open-minded for a male from the time she had first met him, and their experience with Ayla and Jondalar when he had broken his leg defending her from men of the Others had only reinforced his willingness to reconsider female roles in his cave. Yorga had also learned, from private talks with Ayla while Guban was recovering from his injured leg, that Ayla had shared a spiritual experience with Mog-ur One-Eye that had profoundly affected her. Yorga thought that she would be willing to give almost anything to make such a ceremonial journey. But she was certain that Trok would immediately reject any such notion, and would therefore dismiss her recent experiences with the plants as well. Perhaps it was best to wait and talk to her mate in private later.

Guban continued to observe her peripherally while discussing the ceremony with Trok, and was fascinated by her behavior. After almost committing the nearly unpardonable indiscretion of actually interrupting his discussions with the mog-ur by touching him in order to get his attention, something she had never come close to doing in the past, it now appeared to him that she had turned to stone, with her eyes glazed over and her breathing barely perceptible. He decided that he would rather talk to her in private about her strange behavior rather than grant her permission to speak now.

"Are you really considering moving to a new cave, Guban?" she heard Trok ask, relieved that she would be spared voicing her ideas for the moment. "You have not been the leader of this cave very long and that will be a very difficult decision for the people to accept." Guban thought for a moment that Trok might actually be questioning his leadership, but looking carefully at the man's face and bodily postures, he concluded that, no, Trok was only voicing the truth…it would indeed be an extremely difficult decision, both to make and to implement. "I do not want to move our cave; it has been a very good cave to us for a very long time. I believe that our totem spirits are comfortable here, but I have been increasingly troubled about the recent winters. Yorga is right, the winters have been getting progressively worse for a long time now - - many more years than I had perhaps initially realized. It was so gradual at first that it was easy to ignore in the earlier years. But thinking back to even my own childhood, without even trying to consult my other memories, it seems now that the winters have gotten much worse, and quite quickly. My mind has been filled by so many thoughts about this past winter that I wonder if perhaps the spirits are wishing to make their presence known to me as a warning about further changes to come. I do not wish for us to be caught unprepared if our protective spirits decide that it is best for us to leave the cave before the winters make it impossible to do so," Guban concluded.

Trok smiled inwardly, and he thought that Guban was a wise and thoughtful leader. By phrasing his concerns about the possible need to move the cave as a spiritual matter - - that is, the need to move the cave not because Guban thought it was the best thing to do but because their totem spirits were requiring them to move - - not only did Guban appeal to his mog-ur's own expertise as interpreter of the wishes of the Clan's spirit protectors, but it also shifted much of the responsibility for the decision, and the move, upon his mog-ur. "Very clever," Trok thought, "but the spirits will have to speak to me very clearly before I'll agree to any such move".


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Durc peered out onto the grasslands from his vantage point on a low hill above the small stream below where the rest of his small band was camped. Despite his young age, he already felt responsible for them in a way not unlike a leader would. Durc did not think of himself as a leader, but he felt a heavy personal responsibility for their current predicament. It was he who had decided to leave Broud's cave. Although the others in his small group - - Brun, Goov, Uba, his own mate and their children - - had voluntarily left Broud's Clan, none would have done so absent his own decision to leave. Brun was still the nominal leader, but it was Durc who had decided upon their direction of travel. He had led them far to the west, away from Broud's announced decision to lead his clan south and west…as far away from the Others who had been hunting them as possible. Now Durc was having to not only be the primary hunter for his small group, because Brun was too old to be an effective hunter and Goov was not much of one to begin with, but he also had to keep a constant eye out for bands of Others. The Others hunted now for more than just food - - they hunted for vengeance. He still could not believe what Broud had done to raise their ire.

As he scanned the countryside, Durc reflected upon the circumstances that had led to his departure. After Broud had assumed leadership of the cave from Brun, he had immediately cursed Durc's mother, Ayla, with death. Broud had then angered the spirits so much by also ordering Creb, the greatest Mog-Ur of all the Clans, to leave the cave despite his advanced age and infirmities that vengeful spirits had caused an earthquake that destroyed their cave, the only home Durc had ever known. Broud had led his people to a new cave, but it was a cramped and poorly situated one compared to their old home. People had begun complaining almost immediately, and many turned to Brun, encouraging him to retake his old place as leader of their cave.

Broud did not take well to the turn of events. His immense pride would not allow him to even consider for a moment that he was in any way at fault, and once they settled into their new cave he began recasting events into a narrative that placed Ayla as the party responsible for all the wrongs the Clan had suffered. Durc, by extension as Ayla's son, soon earned the wrath of Broud and those who allied themselves with him. But Brun had promised to Ayla, before she departed as a death-cursed spirit, that he would protect and train Durc. And he did so to the best of his abilities despite his advancing age. Although Broud always kept Durc in the position of lowest-ranked hunter, Brun knew that Durc had the potential to become a hunter of exceptional skill. Already fast and agile at his young age, Durc absorbed the hunting lessons that Brun imparted to him like dry soil after a summer rain. The boy also had a knack for new approaches and improvisation, making on-the-spot changes that nearly always led to success in those hunts that might otherwise have failed. And Durc proved more interested in learning, and to be far more apt at, the hunting weapons most young men shunned - - the sling and the bola - - than anyone Brun had ever seen, except for Ayla and her sling. "Perhaps," Brun mused, "He has memories from his mother as well as the Clan memories he so clearly possesses. That might explain why he is already the best hunter with a sling and bola of anyone in the Clan, including me." Brun did not perceive that Durc's longer limbs, more mobile joints, and slimmer and more lengthy torso, all part of his "Others" heritage, gave him unique advantages over the Clan hunters in regard to the sling and bola. The Clan's hunting spears required great strength, and a courageous and long-winded hunter, but the Clan's stocky body type and tighter muscles and joints made the more free-swinging movements required by the sling and bola more difficult. But Brun did know for certain that Broud was a fool not to utilize Durc's obvious skills for the cave's benefit. "My son, even after several years, cannot let go of his irrational hatred for anything having to do with Ayla", he thought.

Durc looked back down at the camp and saw Brun peering up at him underneath his grim, gray visage. "I wonder why Brun decided to come with me" Durc mused, for the hundredth time it seemed. He knew that Brun loved him, and that Brun was supremely disappointed in his own son Broud, but Durc had been shocked when Brun told him he would join him on his planned journey when Durc privately let it be known to Brun and a few others that he was leaving the cave. Living with Broud had become increasingly difficult for much of the cave, but particularly for Durc. The cave was split into two factions - - those who backed their new leader Broud, and those who longed for the days when Brun provided more stable leadership. Broud, aided reluctantly by his new mog-ur Goov, had adroitly manipulated the two factions against one another. He never overlooked any opportunity to denigrate Durc, or Durc's mother, to the cave. On a much more subtle level, and never openly, Broud also tried to belittle his father's past leadership, particularly the variances from Clan tradition Brun had allowed concerning Ayla that, Broud implied, was another root cause of their current discomforts.

Goov was also looking up at Durc on the nearby hilltop. Goov had at first supported Broud, as a good mog-ur should support any leader, despite what Broud had done to Ayla, and especially to Creb. But Broud's other faults quickly became apparent to the perceptive and gentle-tempered Goov, who had learned his role as an apprentice for many years under the tutelage of Creb, the finest man and mog-ur that Goov had ever known. Goov also respected Brun, a man he knew from his own experience to have been a strong, but fair, leader. Yes, Brun had made some unorthodox decisions regarding Ayla during his years as leader, but they had always been carefully considered, and in retrospect had almost always turned out to benefit the Clan in ways both great and small. Broud, by contrast, was impetuous and emotional, and many of his decisions had turned out to be disastrous for the Clan. He was difficult for even his allies to live with, but by long Clan tradition the leader's son, once elevated to leadership by proper ceremony as Broud had been, was the leader. Goov firmly believed that tradition demanded obedience to the leader absent extraordinary circumstances, and so he continued to support Broud even when he privately disagreed, sometimes strongly, with Broud's methods and decisions. He had continued to believe that right up to the day that extraordinary circumstances finally intervened.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

It had started out as an ordinary day, except for the strong winds from the south that had kicked up more dust than usual into the air. Broud was leading a party of all the cave's hunters, along with some of the women, in a search for bison that had been spotted the day before from their new cave. Broud had even ordered Goov to come along, although his mog-ur rarely hunted anymore. But in a gesture typical of his contempt for Durc, Broud had ordered Durc to remain behind to tend to the old men, the remaining women, and the children. Finding big game that close to their new cave was a rarity, and everybody was excited at the chance to bring down more than one of the huge creatures to help prepare for the coming winter. For all of Broud's other faults, he was a good hunter, and he wanted to maximize the odds that this would be a successful hunt. Broud lived for the hunt, where his leadership was unquestioned. He took full advantage of that fact to place himself in the position to make the actual kill whenever possible. If there was one thing Broud enjoyed even more than the hunt itself, it was reenacting the hunt around the fire in the days, weeks and months that followed, always glorifying his own role in the process.

On this particular hunt, things had started well. They easily relocated the bison that had passed near the cave the previous day. Although the herd was moving steadily, it was going slowly, grazing constantly along the way. No other predators had disturbed the herd recently, and their growing numbers had a calming effect on the animals. Broud quickly moved his band of hunters ahead of the herd, far enough away so as not to disturb the animals. If the herd continued to move in the direction it was heading, Broud knew that a choke point lay ahead where the bison would be compressed together between some low hills. One of the hills dropped off sharply on the side facing the narrow passage and he hoped the bison would pass through there, making it an ideal ambush point. Although the Clan hunters rarely threw their heavy spears given their unwieldy weight, when circumstances permitted they had learned that a well-coordinated heaving of many spears down from above into a tightly packed herd would often mortally wound more than one animal, and that the resulting confusion and scent of blood would spook the remaining animals into a stampede that the injured beasts could not maintain. It would then be a simple matter to track the speared bison until they stopped from exhaustion or dropped from their wounds, and finish off the weakened animals.

Broud had positioned his hunters well, leaving the women on the far side of the hill to await the outcome. He rejoiced inwardly when the bison continued to make their way towards the choke point. There was nothing left to do now but wait, and then he would have a surplus of hides, meat, fat, horns and all of the other useful parts that large game provided. He envisioned his cave eating well throughout the coming winter as a result of this hunt, and he looked forward to all of the praise and thanks he would receive from his contented cave. "Maybe they'll finally stop complaining about our new cave, and let me lead them the way I'm supposed to", he thought to himself, "I'm their leader and they should always do whatever I say and be thankful about it". His anticipation grew as the leading edge of the herd approached.

Suddenly the front edge of the herd started to scatter and mill about. Broud heard the anxious calls of confused bison as smaller creatures seemed to appear out of nowhere. He peered through the dust, not believing that he saw other hunters deliberately driving the bison in another direction. "Who are they?" Broud gestured furiously, looking around to see which of his hunters had disobeyed his instructions to remain quiet and still as the herd had approached. He became confused when he quickly noted that all of his hunters were present. Could it be the women who had done such a thing? If it were, he would punish them all as they had never been punished before. He turned back to the astonishing scene and suddenly saw spears flying through the air at the bison that had been separated from the rest of the herd by the confusion. He saw more figures running about and suddenly realized who had caused the problem: Others! How dare they steal the bison Ursus had so obviously prepared for his Clan!

Gesturing to his hunters to follow him, Broud leapt down from their vantage point and bounded off after the Others in a frenzy. His other hunters followed, but much more cautiously. "What would Broud do to the hunters of the Others?" they wondered. Broud ran up to the nearest interloper and stuck him a blow across his back that sent him sprawling. None of the other hunters had seen Broud, or the other flatheads, approaching until they were upon them. Suddenly the air was filled with the voices of the Others as they called out to one another. They quickly retrieved their spears and approached the clearly angry flatheads and recovered their friend who was still laboring to catch his breath after Broud's stunning blow. None of the Others had any idea where the flatheads had come from, what they were doing there, or why they were so angry that one of them would actually attack one of their own men. Also, the men realized, they had no idea how many more flatheads might still be lying in wait, unseen.

When Broud started gesturing his questions at the Others as to why they had ruined Broud's perfectly planned hunt, they gripped their spears more tightly and moved closer together for protection. Why was the angry flathead who had struck their friend now waving his arms around like a madman? They started yelling questions, and insults, at the stupid flatheads who had interrupted their own hunt. Of course no one understood the other at all. After a period of mutual angry stares and glares at one another, Broud suddenly walked over to the nearest dead bison that the Others had killed with their incredible throwing spears and started trying to drag it off. When Broud signaled to his hunters to come and assist him, they remained frozen in their tracks, seeing several of the Others raising spears that had been thrown with such deadly accuracy into the bison herd just minutes before. Broud's rage mounted when he was not instantly obeyed. "This is our bison, and we should have had more!" his gestures practically screamed. "What are you waiting for? This is our meat; our hide; our winter provisions!" When several of the flatheads began to move towards the one standing over their bison kill, several more of the hunters of the Others raised their spears and aimed them towards Broud and the other flatheads. Broud's hunters instantly froze again. Then the one who might have been the leader of the Others spoke again, and the Others who had been making threatening gestures with their spears suddenly lowered them. The same man then walked slowly towards Broud until he was within ten feet. He studied Broud, then made an elaborate display of holding his spear out at arm's length, with the point turned away from Broud, and then tossing it a few feet to the side. The man then held both of his empty hands out towards Broud and contorted his face into a vaguely threatening grimace, or so it seemed to Broud. He understood neither the friendly intent of the man's smile, nor the meaning of the jabbering flood of sounds that began emanating from the Others' leader's mouth.

Had Broud been able to understand the man, he would have learned that the leader of the Others had deduced the cause of the flatheads' anger, and that he was sorry to have spoiled their hunt. He gestured towards the bison that Broud was standing over in a manner he hoped would communicate his permission for Broud and his hunters to take that bull as their own. His own hunters had killed several other bison, and he could spare this one under the circumstances. He began to back away, his arms still spread wide with his palms up, and Broud finally began to perceive that the leader of the Others was backing down. He had won a victory against the Others! They were afraid of him and his hunters and were now going to depart, leaving the bison - - all of the bison - - to the Clan! What an amazing tale that would make for his cave this winter, and for the next Clan gathering! He would be considered a hero, and would perhaps become a figure of legend - - an ancestor to be remembered for generations to come!

Broud puffed out his chest and ordered some of his hunters to begin taking charge of all of the downed bison. But when they moved towards the other dead and dying beasts the men of the Others once again gathered together and raised their spears, making it clear that they still considered the other dead bison their own. Broud's face once again contorted in fury. How dare they? He began running at the leader of the Others when he suddenly saw a swift movement from the corner of his eye. A tall, slim hunter had previously placed a stone in a sling when their leader had approached the angry flathead and thrown away his spear. It seemed a dangerous move on the leader's part, and a stone in a sling seemed a sensible precaution when dealing with these unpredictable flathead animals. When Broud began his sudden rush towards the leader's back, she immediately swung her sling and fired a stone at him.

Broud felt a sudden burst of pain and was surprised to find himself on his back on the ground, still clutching his spear, looking up at his other hunters who were peering down at him with concerned looks. They were standing over him in a protective posture, and the Others were once again jabbering and raising their spears in threatening manners. Broud climbed back to his feet, shook his throbbing head, and began searching for the hunter of the Others who had downed him with the hard-flung stone. He was surprised when the leader of the Others once again approached him, threw down his spear and opened his palms to show he carried no other weapons. He then gestured to one of his hunters, who came slowly to his side. Broud saw the sling hanging from the new hunter's hands and suddenly had his target. But he was flabbergasted when the hunter with the sling lowered a hood to reveal long blond hair and a woman's face! He had been bested by a woman of the Others in front of all of his hunters! Worse, the woman immediately reminded him of Ayla and her sling. He felt his anger move beyond furious to a still, calm place of pure hatred for these Others. He would rather die - - right here, right now - - than return home under these circumstances. When he saw the woman also drop her sling, raise her empty hands and take a step towards him, Broud suddenly thought of a way to exact at least a partial revenge upon these Others and this woman who had shamed him. He gestured to his own hunters to be ready for action using Clan hand gestures that meant nothing to the Others. He then dropped his own spear, and mimicking the actions of the Others he spread his own arms a small ways away from his sides with his own palms facing upwards. He watched as the Others all began to lower their spears, relax their bodies, and make their odd grimaces. Broud slowly took a few small steps towards the woman, then paused. She took a few steps away from her comrades to close the distance between them, and then slowly extended her hands towards him. He quickly double-checked those hands to ensure that she carried no other easily accessible weapon, then quick as a cat pulled out his club from under his wrap and lashed at her with a vicious blow.

As she crumpled to the ground with her arm broken and several ribs fractured from the sudden blow, Broud's other hunters leapt into action, jabbing at the Others around them and swinging their own clubs to clear a space around Broud. The Others retreated momentarily, stunned at the vicious cunning displayed by the animal flatheads. Several of the Others had suffered puncture wounds at the hands of the flathead spears, and bruises from clubs, but no one had been killed, and as far as their leader could immediately determine, no one was mortally wounded. The leader of the Others might have retreated and left these bestial flathead animals to their bison had it not been for the fact that his daughter, the one who had flung the stone at Broud, was now lying among the group of flatheads in obvious pain. He quickly told his hunters to kill only if necessary to protect themselves, but that they were otherwise free to use their slings, knives and spears as they saw fit to drive these flatheads off and rescue his daughter. Not wanting to lose the use of their spears at the outset, the Others who had slings with them loaded them with stones and made the first attack upon the flatheads. The hard-flung stones had the intended effect, and the flatheads began retreating. When the flathead leader who had so violently attacked an unarmed woman began to rally his hunters, some of the Others then unleashed a volley of spears. That proved to be enough. Broud's hunters were routed when several of the Others' spears wounded them. Burdened with helping their wounded comrades, they moved away from the Others as quickly as possible, leaving all of the bison behind. The Others allowed them to depart, their leader still uncertain about how many other flatheads might be in the area. The Clan hunters returned to their camp with nothing but blood, dust and misery to show for their hunt. Before they made it back to their cave, one of Broud's hunters died from his wounds.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Goov had watched the entire scene from the relative safety of the hilltop upon which Broud and his hunters had waited for the bison herd to approach. He had immediately deduced that the reason the Others were suddenly present was that they were hunting the same herd, probably arriving from a different direction behind the line of low hills to the west. Given the dust that had been blowing in the air, neither hunting party had seen the other until the Others began their assault upon the bison. When Broud had raced away in a fury and attacked the first hunter of the Others, Goov knew that a clash was inevitable. Goov knew he was no warrior; in fact he was barely a competent hunter, therefore he stayed behind and observed. He was surprised and pleased when the leader of the Others made the conciliatory gestures of dropping his spear and making it obvious that he was giving Broud one of the dead bison as compensation for disturbing their hunt. Goov was then surprised and displeased that Broud had acted so crassly by trying to claim all of the bison that the Others had killed. He was stunned when Broud subsequently tried to attack the Others' leader and was dropped by a slingstone from one of the Others. But he was furious when Broud clubbed the woman who was trying to demonstrate compassion after having hit Broud with the stone. None of it had been necessary at all. Broud had utterly failed his hunters, and his Clan, as leader by making a series of disastrous decisions, each more indefensible than the last. Goov knew that Broud had now made enemies of the Others in this area.

Broud, of course, had later recast events in such a way as to make his actions seem not only reasonable, but required under the circumstances. He ordered his hunters, and everyone in his cave, to avoid the Others at all times. Goov had told Brun, Durc, and the other older men who no longer hunted the real story of what had actually happened. Brun was so angered by his son's stupidity and subsequent lying that he was finally prepared to retake leadership of the cave, and if necessary, curse Broud with death. Goov counseled patience, and it was at that time that Durc had first stated his intention to leave the Clan. Brun and Goov were initially appalled at the idea, but events soon changed their minds.

The clash between Broud's hunters and the hunters of the Others had lit a firestorm in the local Mamutoi camps. The underlying enmity and ugly prejudice against flatheads came out into the open, and calls for their extermination were met with nods of approval rather than calls for coexistence. Large parties of mostly younger hunters were quickly organized and sent out to the site of the bison kill where the clash occurred to track the flatheads back to their lair. Within a matter of days the Clan's cave was discovered, and the Mamutoi hunters, as they did before beginning to hunt any new breed of animal, observed the flatheads from a safe distance to learn as much as possible about them as prey. The skilled hunters quickly learned that flathead women were not hunters, and were likely uninvolved in the earlier clash in any way. They also learned that flatheads did not throw their spears, and that they seemed to have only rudimentary skills with any weapon that killed at a distance, such as slings, bolas, thrown knives or even tossed clubs. The Mamutoi leaders gathered and decided to forbid revenge of any kind against flathead females, children, or elderly flatheads that appeared too old to hunt. Although they did not believe that flatheads possessed any spiritual beliefs of any kind, and therefore did not have anything like shaman, holy men, or mamuts, the leaders also discouraged the killing or wounding of any flathead who appeared to be any kind of a spiritual leader. The stated goal was to encourage the flatheads to leave the area, not to annihilate them.

Life quickly became very difficult for Broud's hunters. After the first few ambushes and attacks on individual hunters resulted in many wounds, Broud ordered his hunters to only go out in packs. When even those larger parties were attacked by Others - - always from a distance using hard-flung stones and thrown spears - - and Broud's second-in-command Vorn was killed, Broud knew it was time to find a new cave, as far away from these horrible Others as they could find. When he announced his intention to move the cave, Durc knew that his time to leave the Clan had come.


	8. Chapter 8

VIII.

As Durc was recalling the events that had led him to leave his Clan and lead his small group away, he suddenly realized that he had been daydreaming and was not paying close attention to the view of the grasslands before him. A movement in the distance caught his eye and he squinted his eyes as he looked out through the hazy afternoon sun. His heart began to race as he realized that it was a band of hunters coming into view, and they seemed to be heading straight towards him. He lowered his head and moved behind the crest of the hill to a slightly better vantage point that was better protected by low shrubs and thicker grasses. Peering out again he saw that it was a band of Others. He pressed his fingers against his leg as he said the counting words that Goov had been teaching him. Eight! There were eight figures approaching him. How had he not seen them before now - - they were already so close. Looking behind them, Durc could now see from his new position that there was a crease in the earth, a shallow valley, that the Others must have been traveling along. It was deep enough to conceal their approach, but not so big that, when Durc looked out onto the grasslands as a whole, he would notice - - it simply blended into the view. Durc wondered how these Others could possibly know they were camped here behind this hill. Or was it just bad luck that led them this way? Either way, they were on a course that would lead them directly to his camp in just a matter of minutes.

He got his answer when he turned around and headed back down the hill to warn his group about the oncoming hunters. He saw a thin line of blue smoke rising lazily up from their campfire below. He angrily ran down the hill as fast as he could, withholding a shout to those below for fear that the Others would hear. Was no one tending to the fire? Both men and women of the Clan knew how to tend a fire to prevent smoking by using only certain dry hardwoods and other materials that minimized smoke. Normally, when a mixed group of men and women were out in the open while traveling, the women tended the fire. When the group was as small as Durc's was, however, responsibility for tending the fire became more of a shared duty, with the result that no one constantly tended it. As their small campfire came into view, Durc saw that the women and children had moved off a short distance to gather some much-needed food, and the men, who had been keeping an eye on him as he moved about the hilltop, had not been paying sufficient attention to the fire in the womens absence. The fire had been allowed to spread to some nearby woody shrubs that were smoking as they slowly charred and then began to burn.

Durc rushed to the campfire and kicked dirt on it as Brun and Goov rushed back towards him. "Why are you putting out the fire?" Brun gestured. He was growing weary of this journey at his advanced age and had been looking forward to a hot meal and a long rest. Durc pointed his finger in the direction he had seen the approaching hunters and said: "Others!" The women, who always kept the men at some level of awareness, had seen them gather together and then, they too saw the smoke rising from the fire. "Uba, get the children and hurry back to the fire" said Durc's mate as she quickly stowed her gathering basket and began to hurry back to camp. By the time the women and children made it back to camp the men had already repacked their tents, packs and other belongings. But it took a few more minutes before the women were able to prepare themselves and the children for travel. They were all tired and hungry, and the children were particularly difficult to control, especially when they found out that Others were close by and perhaps hunting them. They all knew what the hunters of the Others did to Clan men when they found them. And here they were, trapped out in the open grasslands with no cave, no forest, nothing to do but try to escape. Durc looked about and quickly consulted with Brun about their direction of travel. "You saw them and the direction they were approaching from, Durc" Brun motioned, "you choose."

Durc chose to try to escape in the direction that they had been traveling for so long already, west. They stayed close to the bottom of the hill, crouching as they ran, trying to keep their heads below the tops of the taller grasses and reeds all about them. They had not been running for more than a few minutes before Durc realized that he had made the wrong choice. Coming around the hill directly in front of them were the Others.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Ranawa woke to the sound of gentle waves washing up against her dark legs. She groaned as she attempted to move her battered limbs. She found herself on a pebbly shoreline, looking up at thick woods a short distance away. The sun was low in the sky, and a cool, steady wind blew in from the sea. As a wave slapped her face, she rose to her hands and knees and crawled up the beach as far as she could…a distance of about ten feet. She collapsed, exhausted, and set her mind to thinking about how she came to be lying on an unfamiliar beach in such bad straits. After a brief rest, her memories came back to her in a rush.

She, her husband Wymez, and her son Ranec had tried to cross the great waters in a small boat. The people who provided them with the watercraft had warned them that it was the wrong time of year to attempt such a treacherous crossing, but they had been forced to make the attempt because members of their own tribe were coming to stop them. Because relations had deteriorated between her own black-skinned Aterian tribe and the other, lighter-skinned, tribes in the area, clashes had broken out. Because Wymez was a white-skinned man whom she had nonetheless fallen in love with and married, he became distrusted by her own tribesmen. When some of the younger hotheads began calling for Wymez and their son Ranec to be driven from the tribe, she and Wymez made the decision to try to flee as a family rather than become forcibly separated.

The crossing began well enough. It was a calm and sunny day, if a bit windy. They had set off and made good progress at first. They could actually a thin, dark line on the horizon indicating that they were approaching the other shoreline when a storm blew up. They made the best progress that they could as the winds and waves grew, but between making sure that their baby Ranec stayed safe in the boat, and bailing out the water that seemed to accumulate faster and faster from the downpouring rain and the wind-tossed waves that washed over their boat's sides, they soon realized that they were in grave danger. Because Wymez was the better swimmer, Ranawa agreed that Ranec should be strapped to Wymez' back when it became obvious that they were going to have to swim for their lives the rest of the way to land. The boat sank beneath them a short time later, taking most of their possessions with it. They tried to stay together in the storm-tossed waters, but quickly became separated. The last she had seen of her husband and child was from the bottom of a trough between giant waves as Wymez and Ranec crested a nearby wave. Then they were gone. She had continued to swim until exhaustion overcame her, and remembered nothing else until she awoke to find herself on this strange shore.

Ranawa spent the next several days recovering from her bruises and exhaustion while exploring the immediate vicinity to see if she could find any trace of Wymez or Ranec. Every time she saw a hump in the sand, or a dark shape upon the beach in the distance, her heart caught in her throat as she approached. Each time she was relieved to the point of tears to find that they weren't her family, but also increasingly despondent that they had apparently not survived the swim to shore. As her health returned she explored farther and farther down the beach in both directions, using the beach that she had first washed up on as a kind of home base from which to explore. Her hopes for finding either her husband or her baby alive faded more with each passing day, especially after she came upon some wreckage on the beach that could have been their boat. "If the currents in this area brought both me and our boat to these shores, they should have brought Wymez and Ranec here as well," Ranawa thought, "unless something happened to them while they were still at sea." She finally decided to simply travel in one direction along the beach until she found either the bodies she so feared she might find, or met up with other people so that she could try to get a boat and return across the waters to her own people. She became more depressed with each passing day of searching and traveling, and she began to pay less careful attention to her surroundings. She was therefore caught unawares when a small hunting party of strange hairy men came upon her during their fishing and salt-collecting trip to the coast.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

"What is she"? Kren asked of his mog-ur for seemingly the hundredth time over the past week. The strange black woman who had appeared from nowhere was a mystery. No one from Kren's large clan had ever seen such a dark-skinned person before, and they were disturbed, and a little frightened, by the black being in their midst. Their mog-ur, Dren, had forbidden anyone, including Kren, to harm the woman until he had meditated upon the matter. When Kren asked him why, Dren replied, "Kren, what if she is some sort of spirit in human form? What if she is powerful? What might happen to us if we harm or kill her and then her spirit is unleashed?" Kren replied, "Let's just make her leave then. If we can't kill her, or curse her with death, let's just take her back to the beach where she was found and let her go." "She knows where our cave is now, Kren - - what if she returns here in anger?" Dren asked, genuinely fearful of the dark woman. She seemed entirely unable to communicate, alternating between silence, long streams of jabbering sounds, and wailing and crying. Dren had ordered his medicine woman Sheba to spend time with the dark creature and learn whatever she could about her, but had reported little progress. "She just sits there making her strange sounds with water pouring out of her eyes, Dren", Sheba reported. "She sometimes looks at me and tries to put her arms around me, and sometimes she reaches out for one of our babies or young children, but they fear her and run away, and then she wails and waters even more."

For her part, Ranawa was rapidly losing interest in living. None of the hairy people seemed to speak at all, instead just waving their hands and arms at each other. And although one of the women, whose name she finally gathered was a guttural form of "Shee-bah" had approached her on multiple occasions seeming to want to communicate, she had backed away when Ranawa tried to hug her in misery. No amount of explaining seemed to make any of these strange people understand that she was miserable, and had lost her husband and child, and wanted nothing more than to continue her search to either find them or find a way back home. She caught the dark looks from the two men who seemed to spend the most time observing her, and the fearful looks from the women and children. She became convinced that she would eventually be killed, or worse. One day, she finally decided to dance her tribe's death dance, the way that her people said goodbye to the memory of the occasional man, woman, and even children who simply disappeared from time to time in the jungles of her homeland. Between hostile other tribes, animal predators, and the occasional fatal accident while out traveling or exploring, people just sometimes disappeared and never returned, their bodies never found. Ranawa decided that the time had come to say goodbye to Wymez and Ranec, and, in a greater sense, to say goodbye to all of her own people, whom she was becoming increasingly convinced that she would never see again. That death dance changed her life forever.

As she arose she became the immediate object of attention by all of the Clan people in the cave, including Kren and Dren. As Ranawa started her dancing, full of flowing arm and hand movements, she seemed to stare up towards the roof of the cave, and through it. Her dance captivated the watching Clan. Although her gestures meant nothing specific to them, they were used to reading bodily postures and facial expressions, and she seemed, to them, to be speaking to the spirits in some unknown, esoteric language. Kren became alarmed as Ranawa's dance began to accelerate. She danced with greater abandon and began making a high, wordless, ululating and keening cry to give voice to her grief, both for herself and for her lost husband and child. As she gave way fully to her grief, her dancing became more violent, her hair being tossed in all directions as she bent at the waist and rotated her hips. Her arm movements became wilder as she circled in place, kicking out her legs at seemingly random intervals. Her cries built to screams that reverberated throughout the cave. "What is she doing?" Kren demanded of Dren. Dren was transfixed by the sight of the black woman who had apparently gone berserk, except for the fact that her dance so clearly had some great purpose. Her eyes were wide open, which made a frightening contrast to her dark, contorted face. His earlier belief that she might be some kind of dark, powerful spirit returned to his thoughts fourfold. Just as that thought crystalized in his mind, a tremendous clap of thunder from a storm that had suddenly blown up outside the cave while they were all watching Ranawa's dance reverberated inside the cave.

"She's the incarnation of one of the ancient, dark spirits of wind, mist and rain!" Dren suddenly gestured, convinced that the thunder signaled this strange creatures powers over the elements. "She's a night spirit, powerful and possibly evil" he continued, and his gestures showed his fright. The other people in his cave, including even their leader Kren, suddenly shared his fear. "What should we do?" Kren practically shouted with his gestures when another clap of thunder sounded. Everybody inside the cave could also hear the winds rising outside. "Everybody sit down and remain silent," Dren said, trying to think of a way to let this dancing dervish know that he now knew who she was and that no one would harm her. Indeed, Dren thought that his clan should perhaps even begin to worship this woman who had suddenly appeared in their midst out of the most ancient Clan legends. A time in a past so distant that women could be possessed by powerful, dark spirits and thereby become a powerful sorceress, a mog-ur…even a leader of a cave! How could he tell her that she could stop raising up the thunderstorm that now raged outside their cave. Dren, as well as that of the other men, women and children inside the cave, were now convinced that the strong storm was under command of the dancing woman, and that she could, if she wanted to, bring it right inside their cave. They all looked to their mog-ur for guidance and for him to bring help from their protective Clan spirits.

Dren, at a gestured command from Kren, approached the now tiring dark woman. Each and every member of the cave was stunned when their mog-ur suddenly dropped down to a kneeling posture before the dancing woman - - he was adopting the posture of a woman who was asking for permission to speak to a man! Every line of the mog-ur's face, and every angle of his submissively postured body, spoke clearly to the people of his intense fear of this dark creature, who slowed, and then stopped her dance to look down upon the crouching mog-ur before her. In her state of tired confusion after her exhausting dance of death, she staggered forward just enough to brush the shoulder of the man kneeling before her. Dren took that touch as permission to speak, looked up into her dark visage and began to make the supplicating gestures he hoped would mollify this dark spirit's anger. His gestures told his watching clan that he now knew she was one of the Clan's most ancient spirits come back to life, and that she had nothing to fear from them; they would revere her and care for her as one of their own. And in his most supplicating gestures, the mog-ur humbly and meekly asked this woman to make the storm outside go away.

Ranawa had no idea what the man kneeling before her was saying, but she gathered that he seemed to be genuinely afraid of her. Then she looked around and saw that all of the other strange hairy people were sitting down with their eyes averted away from her. She had no idea what had caused this sudden turn of events, but she suddenly thought that perhaps she could use it as an opportunity to escape her captivity. These people had been kind to her; had fed her, given her furs to wear, and a place near a fire, but she wanted to leave and continue her search. She walked slowly towards the entrance to the cave, waiting any moment for someone to rise up and seize her, but they remained seated. When she reached the cave's entrance and pulled the hide aside, she looked out onto the ragged remnants of the thunderstorm that had blown up and over them all. She stood at the entrance watching the sky as the line of clouds that had held the storms moved overhead, to continue their stormy path to the east. As the clouds thinned out towards the west, a shaft of the setting sun poked through and lit the cave's entrance as she stood in it, illuminating her as if Ursus himself had painted her with golden light.

After that day, two things happened. First, the Clan still refused to allow her to depart. Dren was convinced that it was far too dangerous to allow such a powerful spirit to simply wander off. Two, Ranawa was now treated as if she were some form of royalty. When Kren had asked how they could possibly contain such a powerful spirit, Dren had replied that he, Kren, and everybody else in the cave had to treat this dark woman with all the respect and honor that they could possibly show, in an effort to convince her stay. After that day Ranawa was allowed to leave the cave, but always with bodyguards who followed her wherever she chose to go, and always guided her back to the cave when her wandering was done. As time passed and Ranawa found neither her family or any other people of any kind in the area, she resigned herself to staying with the strange hairy people. Her life had certainly changed over the past months. The finest furs, the choicest cuts of meat, the most succulent vegetables and fruits, the most comfortable places by the most well-situated fire in the cave were all given to her without even having to ask. She was given whatever she wanted, so long as she could accurately communicate what it was she wanted. But she finally had to give up on trying to ask these people for a boat - - they simply could not conceive of what it was she was asking for, and they had no memories for boat-building even if they had understood.

Ranawa discovered by observation that the woman who had tried to befriend her before, Sheba, was the group's healer, and that she seemed to know a great deal about plants. As the months rolled by, Ranawa saw the efficacy of her cures, and was fascinated by the plants that Sheba prepared for the ceremonies that the men went off and had on their own from time to time. The two women became friends, and it was with Sheba that Ranawa finally had the breakthrough she needed to have regarding communication. Close association and friendly interactions had allowed Ranawa to gradually learn that certain gestures always accompanied certain plants; that other gestures were always accompanied by certain actions, and that certain words, though clipped and guttural, reliably meant the same thing. From that point on Ranawa rapidly learned the gestured language of the Clan. She also learned a great deal about Sheba's plants and remedies. Because she was not expected to do the tasks that Clan women normally did, she had much more free time.

Dren and Kren had ordered Sheba to help educate their captive dark spirit in every way she could, and to refuse her nothing. Sheba was therefore also freed from many of the more menial tasks that she normally had to perform as a woman of the clan. She grew to enjoy the newfound freedom she had, and used the time to not only educate Ranawa, but to explore her own vast and growing knowledge of the various plants in her environment. She taught Ranawa as well, and the two women constantly had their heads together about some new or remembered plant and what it could do. Ranawa found that she enjoyed the self-experiments with Sheba whenever they discovered a new plant. They were free to wander a much greater distance from the cave than Sheba was normally allowed to roam, and as a consequence they were exploring ecological niches from seashores to mountaintops and everything in between. In the process, Sheba found many plants that were either new to her, but which she was able to capture her Clan memories of; and completely new plants about which she had neither knowledge nor memory of at all. These were the plants they experimented on together. Most of the plants, indeed almost all of them, had little medicinal effect. Some had interesting tastes, and these were gathered for possible use in cooking. Two of the plants they discovered, however, were of far greater interest.

One plant, a low-lying herb that grew only in moist, sandy soils, proved to be astonishingly poisonous. Sheba was glad that she always started her experiments on new plants with only the tiniest bit of material, and then went on to gradually larger bits to discern any effects. On this occasion she had allowed Ranawa to try out the tiny bit of a new plant on herself. Ranawa's tongue and lips had immediately turned red and swollen and she began to have difficulty breathing and swallowing within a matter of moments. Sheba reached into her otterskin bag of medications she always kept on hand for emergencies and pulled out a plant she knew was an emetic that caused immediate vomiting. She gave it to Ranawa with the desired results. Ranawa continued to suffer from various effects…stomach cramps, diarrhea, blistered lips, and more for many days thereafter. She recovered fully , but both women were amazed at the strength of the poisonous plant. Sheba immediately dismissed the plant, except as one to be avoided, but Ranawa was fascinated by the poisonous plant. Back in her home country, poisons had long been used by the various tribes to kill selected enemies when open warfare was not an option. She gathered more of the plant on an occasion when Sheba did not accompany her, and placed a few leaves of the plant - - far more than she had ingested - - into a piece of meat that she took with her to an area near the cave where the clan hunters had repeatedly run across a lone wolf that menaced them and sometimes stole their kill. She left the meat and checked on it again the next day. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw not only the dead wolf, but numerous other smaller meat-eaters lying dead at various distances from where she had left the meat. Ranawa thereafter kept some of the poisonous plant with her at the bottom of her otterskin fur bag that she had asked Sheba to make for her even though she wasn't a clan medicine woman.

The second plant turned out to be a powerful hallucinogen. Once the two women began ingesting larger quantities of the milky sap from the plant, they began having unexplainable visions full of colors, shapes and even talking spirits. When the mog-ur learned of this new plant he demanded that they stop experimenting with it because it seemed to be a plant that should be reserved for the men's ceremonies. But when Ranawa insisted that they be allowed to continue, Dren backed down.

Both Dren and Kren had both been having increasing doubts about the dark woman as the months went by and she seemed to act like a normal woman rather than a powerful dark spirit. "What has she done since that day she danced in the cave and caused a storm that shows she's any kind of spirit, much less a powerful ancient one?" Kren asked of his mog-ur one day. Dren thought for a minute, then replied: "What does she have to do? We don't ask her to perform any ceremonies, or to make it rain, or to do anything else extraordinary. We just serve her." "Exactly" gestured Kren, "Perhaps we should put her to another test to make certain that she didn't fool us in some way the first time." "What do you suggest?" asked the mog-ur. Kren had been thinking about how to test the strange woman about whom he was having increasing doubts, and he had hit upon a plan. "What if we let it be known, probably through Sheba, that we are thinking of having Ranawa cursed with death?" Kren said "Without actually threatening her, and with immediate denials from both of us if she appears to be getting angry, or starts to dance, or something." "Why would you risk such a thing?" Dren asked, immediately fearful of some awful retribution from the woman. "I'm not going to risk it," said Kren, "as mog-ur of this clan it is your place to test spirits, and it is you who can call most clearly upon the clan's totem spirits, and even Ursus himself, to protect you if necessary. I order you to do so, in a manner of your own choosing. Just keep me informed when you've made a plan."

Dren looked on with disbelief as his leader walked away and then out of the cave. "He may as well have ordered me to curse myself with death if Ranawa proves to be an actual dark spirit reborn," he thought. But he too had been entertaining doubts about Ranawa, and thought that perhaps something could be done to test the woman. But he wasn't going to risk just his own neck in the process. If he were to suffer some supernatural retribution for tempting fate by threatening a possibly dark and vengeful spirit, his leader was going to share in that danger. He made up his mind on the spot about what to do and called Sheba over to his hearth. "I might as well do this while Kren is out of the cave," he thought. He told Sheba he was worried that Kren was going to order him to curse Ranawa with death in the next day or two; that Kren no longer believed she was a spirit, and that he, as the clan's mog-ur, would be forced to fix the bones and utter the words to curse her with death if the leader ordered it. He told Sheba not to say anything about this to Kren, because Kren had ordered him to keep it a secret. "I'm just telling you, Sheba, because you are always with Ranawa and once I begin the curse, she may turn on anyone and everyone near her if she is, in fact, a spirit." Sheba was terrified at the plan she now believed the leader had hatched, and at her mog-ur's apparent willingness to carry it out. She knew she shouldn't say a word to Ranawa, but felt an obligation to let her know, so that Ranawa could flee the cave before the curse was cast. Dren could practically read the thoughts and emotions playing across Sheba's face, and he decided to push her towards telling Sheba by ordering her to stay near Ranawa as much of the time as possible, to see if she showed any sign of suspecting that she was being considered for death. Dren was pleased when he saw Sheba leave his hearth and head immediately over to Ranawa's fire. The two women spoke briefly, and then walked together out of the cave.

"Why do they want to curse me with death, Sheba?" Ranawa asked, not understanding, or even believing, what she was hearing from the clan's medicine woman. "They no longer seem to believe that you have any special powers" she replied. "What kind of powers do they think I have?" asked Ranawa. Sheba then told her, for the first time, what the Clan believed about her, and how her dance and the accompanying thunderstorm had struck such fear into the mog-ur that he had declared her to be a dark, ancient, elemental spirit come back to life who could be neither killed nor set free because of the unknown nature of her powers and their fear of what she might do if cursed with death or set free. Everything suddenly came into focus for Ranawa - - the fear of those around her; the levels of service and freedom she enjoyed that no other female came close to having; the constant guard around her; and the obedience to her demands, and even requests, that the people around granted her. "What exactly does Dren think I am? What kind of powers am I supposed to have?" she asked of Sheba. "Dren believes that you are a spirit that has power over nature; for example the thunderstorm he believes that you created with your dance. He has never named you, but he believes that you are either one of the spirits of rain, wind, or mist, or perhaps some other ancient spirit of equal power."

Ranawa thought for a moment, and had a sudden idea of how she might use the mog-ur's fears and beliefs about her to her own advantage. She asked Sheba if both Dren and Kren believed that she had the power of life and death over the clan. Sheba was taken aback - - did she? Why would she ask such a thing? "What do you mean 'the power of life and death'?" Sheba asked. Ranawa saw the fear on the medicine woman's face and decided to press her advantage right away. "I mean, do Dren and Kren know that I can strike them down whenever I wish? Not just curse them with death, but to actually kill them where they stand without even touching them?" Sheba was appalled, and felt that she needed to get this information back to her mog-ur as quickly as possible. She said: "They may have believed that at one time, but they are beginning to have doubts. Can you truly do such a thing?" Ranawa thought about the poisonous plant that had recently been discovered. Sheba had discarded it as useless, while Ranawa had tested it further and discovered its deadly potency. "Yes, I can" she said, looking Sheba directly in the eyes. Sheba searched for some sign in the other woman's face, posture, or tone of voice that conveyed any falsehood or exaggeration, but found none. So far as she could tell, Ranawa must actually possess such awesome power. "What manner of spirit have we let into our midst?" she wondered, suddenly fearful for her people.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Ayla and Jondalar had not been idle during their first years back with the Zelandonii. Ayla had been adopted by Jondalar's people, and they had been formally joined by Zolena, the highest Zelandonia of his people. Ayla had given birth to two children, their daughter Jonayla and, a year later, their son Jondothon. Jondalar believed that the children were both of his spirit. Ayla persisted in her strange belief that her children were equally of his body and his spirit - - that is, that both children were born of both herself and Jondalar, not just of Jondalar's spirit. Ayla had named Jonayla herself, but when the second, male, child was born, she asked Jondalar to name him.

Jondalar had long sought some way to keep his younger brother Thonolan's name alive among his family and his people. He remained convinced that it was Thonolan's journey that had led him to Ayla, and that his brother's spirit watched out for them on occasion during his spirit travels in the next world. During the ceremony in which Thonolan's spirit had been located and then guided to Doni's breast, both Jondalar and Zolena felt strongly that his spirit was happy and at peace in the next world. But Jondalar wanted to do something more for his little brother in this world, and he decided that one honor he could bestow was to name his first son after them both: Jondothon. Ayla was pleased with the name as well, because it seemed to her that Jondalar accepted her son as his son as well. Both children thrived.

Although Ayla and her children were fully accepted by both Jondalar's immediate and extended families among the Zelandonii and the Lanzadonii, not everybody was happy with the newcomer. Although Ayla had initially presented herself as "Ayla of the Mamutoi" upon her arrival, she did not shy away from discussing her childhood spent living among the flatheads, or the son Durc that she bore by one of them. Ayla was reminded of Jondalar's initial reaction to her background and her son, when he had spat out words like 'abomination' and 'dirty flathead animals', when similar thoughts and feelings were expressed by some of the other Zelandonii. Much like how Rydag's presence in the Lion Camp had polarized the Mamutoi into two opposing camps, Ayla's Clan past had allowed certain ugly feelings and prejudices to be brought out into the open among the Zelandonii. Although the Zelandonii were a civilized people, they were superstitious as well, and Jondalar's original intense feelings against the Clan, mixed children, and perverse sexual relations between humans and 'the animal flatheads' did not spring out of his own head - - he had learned them growing up among the Zelandonii, and such views were still widely held. Although Jondalar and Ayla were both thankful beyond measure that his family members had been able to quickly set aside their prejudices, Ayla sometimes worried that they did so only for Jondalar's sake, and for family harmony. She often wondered what might have happened if she had come among these people alone, and then told them her tale.

In truth, Ayla thought, more than a few Zelandonii reminded her more of Frebec than Jondalar. Even her animals, Wolf, Whinney and Racer received mixed levels of acceptance…everything from love and support to indifference to fear and loathing. She was particularly sensitive to overheard remarks about how she was so good with animals because she had lived with animals as a child. She varied between confronting such people and ignoring them, but soon realized that confronting prejudice often seemed only to inflame it. She had no doubt but that she had enemies among the Zelandonii, and people who hated her for no other reason than the fact that she had been saved, and then raised, by the Clan when she had lost her parents and people as a young child and was found lying alone in the wilderness by the Clan medicine woman, Iza. But Ayla had long ago decided that she would never hide, or even minimize, her past with the Clan in order to mollify the hateful prejudices of anyone, even her adopted own. But her stubborn pride in her past and the Clan had brought her both admirers and detractors. While she did not fear for her own safety, she sometimes worried about the safety of her animals. She tried to keep the animals close as much as possible, but the wolf and the two horses sometimes went off on their own, and she worried almost as much about them as she did her own children.

Ayla would have been surprised to learn that one person she counted as a supporter was actually struggling with mixed emotions. Zolena, the highest-ranked Zelandonia, and Jondalar's lover in years past, was trying to balance her respect and admiration for everything that Ayla had overcome to arrive here among her people; her love of Jondalar and his family members; and the contentious ranks of the zelandonia from the other caves that made up the Zelandonii people as a whole. A significant portion of the cave's spiritual leaders, perhaps even a majority led by the most vociferous critic Brangula , were taking the position that Ayla and her mixed-spirit child Durc were an abomination to the Mother. There was even talk of forcing Ayla, Jondalar and their children out of their caves. Zolena had been able to contain the worst of that kind of talk, and to convince the zelandonia of the need to keep their thoughts and beliefs concerning this matter privately to themselves until a consensus could be reached. But she felt torn between her personal love and admiration for Jondalar, Ayla and their children and extended families, and her spiritual and professional responsibilities to her fellow zelandonia and to her people as a whole.

After many months of wrangling arguments, divisive discussions, and general acrimony among them, Zolena had finally been able to broker a compromise that would keep the peace among their own ranks, and allow Ayla to stay among them without fear of widespread harassment and official calls to leave the Zelandonii. But it was a delicate agreement, and a dangerous gamble on Zolena's part. One of the primary points of contention had been the widespread belief that anyone who had extensive contacts with the flatheads, and particularly a woman who had given birth to a mixed-spirit child, would draw animal flathead spirits among them, whether they were aware of doing so or not. Zolena had been able to silence that prejudice, at least for the time being, by pointing out the facts that both of Ayla's two children were perfectly normal; that no children of mixed birth had been born among the Zelandonii since Ayla had arrived; and that no other flatheads, or mixed persons of any kind, had even arrived at their caves in the past few years. The gamble Zolena took was that the status quo would continue into the future. If no evidence of flathead influence continued on into the future, the zelandonia all agreed, then Ayla could remain among them undisturbed and the zelandonia would take whatever reasonable steps they could to suppress the prejudices against her. But if mixed children began to be born, or if flatheads or mixed peoples began appearing at their caves in the future, then they agreed that Ayla's presence was likely drawing them and they would meet again as a whole to either expel her or take other necessary actions. Brangula had been the last to submit, and he intended to keep a very close eye on Ayla, her children, and her animals. Zolena was worried about her agreement to possibly someday turn out Ayla, and the effect that would have on Jondalar and his family, but it was the only way she had been able to finally bring the zelandonia together as a whole. She prayed to the Mother as she had never prayed before to make her gamble work. But it was a gamble that Zolena would soon regret taking.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Guban looked out over the people he was leading south. The ceremony that Trok had provided had given him many answers to his questions regarding the worsening winters and his own memories of ancestors moving south when the ice mountains to the north began marching upon the Clan's caves. The memories clearly told them that, on many occasions in the past when the ice mountains moved, they kept moving south for a very long time bringing terrible winters with them. Ancestral Clan peoples had moved south in the past and always found empty and welcoming caves waiting for them. One of Boran's ancestral memories had provided Guban with the clues he needed to lead his people away - - a cliff face with deep recesses in it, many of which faced the warm southern sun, located in protected valleys near rich hunting and gathering grounds. The memories told him to head southwest from his present cave, and to look for a huge rock at the very top of one of the cliffs that looked as if it were frozen in place in the act of falling off the mountaintop. Good caves and protected recesses existed in the cliffs beneath that stone, and many other living places also existed in the surrounding hills and valleys. The memories told them that it was a favored location, and that many northern Clan caves had gathered there in times of need in the distant past.

Guban was proud of his cave, and extremely happy with his talented mog-ur Trok who had successfully led their spirits through the black void on the spiritual journey to their combined ancestral memories, and then brought them all back to the here and now without any adverse consequences. Everyone had heard stories about spiritual journeys that had gone awry leaving some participants dead, or worse, mindless. He shuddered to think about such fates, and respected his mog-ur's willingness to master such hazardous ceremonial journeys as a part of his calling. "Trok may not hunt very often," Guban thought to himself, "but he shows the courage of a hunter in willingly facing such dangers in the spirit world." He was also pleased with Yorga, his second woman. She had handled her obvious disappointment at his decision not to include her in the ceremony with Trok well, and he had respected her by listening to her tales of having visions under the influence of some new plants she had discovered and experimented with. Yorga believed that at least some of her visions came from past memories of her female ancestors. Although Guban had listened politely, he had largely dismissed her visions as unimportant until one detail that she had told him about coincided with the same striking detail from Trok's ceremony - - the frozen, falling rock at the top of a cliff. He resolved to keep Yorga's visions a secret, but to also pay more attention to them in the future.

After traveling south for a number of days, Trok told him it was nine days since they had left their old cave, Guban decided to send out a handful of scouts in various directions with instructions to begin looking for the falling rock that would signal to them that they were getting close to their destination. Hopefully, the scouts could do a little hunting along the way as well. The food stocks they had brought with them were beginning to run low, and traveling in such a large group alerted all of the animals in the area to their presence, making hunting more difficult. Guban and his people were elated a few days later when the scout who had headed due south returned to report that he had seen the falling rock in the distance, and had turned back as soon as he saw it to report that they were within a matter of days of finding their new southern cave! Guban called a halt to their journey for a time in order to allow for the other scouts to return from their travels, as well as to take the time to hunt and gather in order to have a ceremony to thank Ursus and their totem spirits for leading them to their new homes. Although it was not a full-fledged feast that they enjoyed that evening, it was the best meal they had had since they left the cave, and the rest from constant travel was a welcome relief.

The next day saw the return of two other scouts. One had not seen the falling rock along his direction of travel, but had seen tracks in the earth that he believed might belong to the Others. The other scout's report was more ominous. He had seen a hunting party of Others in the distance, but could not tell where they came from or where they were going to. Guban absorbed this news calmly, and told his Clan that they would wait here until the last two scouts returned. Both returned the next day with no reports of either Others or the falling rock. Guban then asked the one scout who had actually seen the falling rock to lead a small party of hunters, along with Trok, towards it so that they could determine if it was, in fact, the falling rock seen in their visions during the ceremony.

After following the scout to his previously located vantage point and studying the rock, both Guban and Trok agreed that it matched the frozen, falling stone they had seen during their spiritual journey. Guban then took over leading the small band of hunters, gesturing to them to remain as quiet as possible as they approached the rock looking for a beter vantage point by which they might be able to see the entire cliff face that their memories told them should be there with their welcoming caves and recesses. When they reached the top of the next ridge and the falling rock once again came into view, Guban was stunned by what he saw. Not only was the cliff located in a perfect, favored location, surrounded by a mix of forests and grasslands that promised easy hunting and rich gathering, but there were other ridges in the distance that appeared to be almost equally favored. But at the gestured urging of his scout, who was renowned for his sharp eyesight, Guban took a closer look at the individual recesses closest to their vantage point. He began to notice movements that, at this distance, resembled ants at an anthill. "Were so many of the Clan already here?" he thought, remembering the empty caves to the far north that he had visited during the previous summer. Perhaps his cave wouldn't get the choicest location afterall, but there still appeared to be plenty of space for more people. Guban chose two hunters, the scout who had led them in this direction, and his second-ranked hunter to go on ahead and announce their impending arrival to the Clans already there. Guban and Trok would return to their group and begin preparations for the final stage of the journey to their new home.

Guban's clan were packed and ready to go by the time the other two hunters returned. Everyone who saw the pair, though, knew instantly that they carried bad news of some kind. They jogged immediately over to where Guban and Trok were standing. The people looked on nervously, trying unsuccessfully to avert their eyes from the gestured conversation. It quickly became obvious that the falling rock shelters that they had traveled so far to find were not only fully occupied, but were occupied by large numbers of the Others!


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Guban's clan had not made it so far south unnoticed by the Others. Individual hunters, and small groups of scouts, had been following the large group of flatheads for some time. From time to time runners were sent to the caves that the flatheads seemed to be heading towards, and one of those runners arrived one summer day to the camp where Ayla and Jondalar lived. The runner, a young man named Narathon, went directly to Zelandonia's home deep within the rock recesses. Moments later she sent one of her acolytes to fetch Ayla, Jondalar and Marthona, Jondalar's mother and a former leader of the cave. She sent another acolyte to find Joharron, the leader of this cave. Zolena instructed her last remaining acolyte to travel immediately to Brangula's cave on the pretext of visiting friends there, and to stay and observe what, if anything, was going on there in regard to the approaching flatheads. "The worst has happened," she thought to herself, "I might as well be as prepared as I can be for what is coming." She feared that she would soon be forced to choose between Jondalar and his wife, children and extended families all of whom she dearly loved, and what was best for her Zelandonii people as a whole. Her first and highest duty as the first-ranked Zelandonia was to her people, but she still hoped that events might be steered to avoid making such a harsh choice.

When everybody that she had sent for had arrived, she told them all in a flat, emotionless monotone what she had done to preserve the peace in regard to Ayla. She wanted them all to know that it was not what she, Zolena, personally wanted, but it was the only course available to her as the Zelandonia of all the people. None of them were even aware of the divisions that Ayla and her past had caused among their spiritual leaders, and Zelandonia was inwardly pleased that her colleagues had managed to keep their extended discussions regarding this matter a closely held secret. But now that the agreement was out in the open, more discussions and compromises seemed to be inevitable. "I'm truly sorry for the gamble I took with your lives", she said, "but I promise you it was the very best that I could do. There was a significant faction that feared you so much that they wanted you to be immediately expelled from our caves before you drew flathead spirits into our lives. It took months of discussions to quiet those voices and find a way to this compromise. We kept it a secret because such a compromise, if known to the people as a whole, would likely have resulted in clashes among the various factions, and I feared for the lives of you children and animals, as well as your own."

Ayla was stunned. She knew that there were those among the Zelandonii who feared her and wished that she hadn't come back with Jondalar, but she had no idea the divisions ran so deep. Her belief that she had finally found a place that she could call home for the rest of her life was now in serious jeopardy. After her initial shock regarding her own situation had worn off, however, her thoughts turned to the approaching group of Clan people. "Did you say that some of the scouts had seen a Clan woman who was covered in blond hair?" Ayla asked of the runner who had brought them the news. "Yes." Narathon replied "Several scouts remarked at how much she stood out from all the other dirty brown animals." Ayla choked back an angry reply and instead turned to Jondalar. "Do remember our encounter with the two Clan people, Guban and Yorga, during our journey home?" "Yes, I do," Jondalar replied, "you set his, Guban's, broken leg and we got to know he and his woman Yorga a little bit." "Do you think this could be his cave, his people, traveling to a new cave?" "I don't know, Ayla, there may be more than one blond flathead out there."

Their conversation was interrupted when the acolyte that Zolena had sent to Brangula's cave suddenly burst in. "There's been some fighting between our people and the flatheads!" she cried, "people on both sides have been injured." Zolena questioned the excited girl and noted to herself that this acolyte required further training before she could be trusted with important functions. "She should have known to bring this news to me privately, rather than bursting in and shouting it out to everybody," Zolena thought. She learned that her acolyte had gotten no further than the outskirts of their own caves when she ran into a runner heading towards her carrying a message for Zolena. When she learned what it was, she had turned around and accompanied him back to Zelandonia's cave. Zolena turned to the messenger from the other camp: "Tell me everything you know of this matter," she demanded. He knew better than to disobey a direct order from the highest-ranked zelandonia in all the caves and he began to tell the story.

"When some of our hunters returned from a trip with news of a large approaching group of flatheads, Brangula reacted instantly - - you know how he feels towards them, Zelandonia. He ordered a larger group of our hunters to track the flatheads to see where they were heading, but to stay far enough away to avoid any contact, and if possible to avoid even being seen. The flatheads seemed to be heading directly towards your home here, Zelandonia. Our hunters watched as first one hunter, then a small party of flatheads broke off from the main group and made their way south. They seemed to be spying on your cave, perhaps in preparation for an attack. Brangula seized upon that idea, and told the members of his cave that they had to defend themselves, their families, and the Zelandonii as a whole against the 'march of the Mother-damned flatheads', as he put it. As it happened, a large number of our hunters were out tracking a herd of bison in the area, and it took several days to locate them. While the rest of us waited at the cave for our more experienced hunters to return, some of the younger hotheads who feel, like Brangula, that the only good flathead is a dead flathead, decided to go out on a raid. They got much more than they bargained for. They say that they gave as good as they got, but it's pretty obvious that they took a severe beating from the flatheads. Brangula sent out a half-dozen runners to the other Zelandonii caves to help raise up a larger force to drive off and kill as many of these invading flatheads as possible." Narathon sat down, indicating that he was finished with his message. Then he asked: "How many hunters can we count on from your cave, Zelandonia?"

Ayla stepped forward. "No hunters need to go, Zolena. I will go and talk with these Clan people myself."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Guban simply could not believe that the Others had attacked his people, throwing stones and flinging spears indiscriminately among men, women and children. He counted it a miracle that, so far at least, none of his people had died. His medicine woman and Yorga were both very busy tending to the wounded, and the attack had been beaten off shortly after it began by the courage and ability of his hunters. He was certain that more than one of the attackers carried broken bones and other bad injuries back to their homes. But he remembered the view of the falling rock caves and his "ants at an anthill" impression, and wondered if the Others would return, this time in far greater numbers. "Trok," he gestured to his mog-ur, "we need to talk. Bring Yorga too." He sent his other hunters into the surrounding woods to keep an eye out for any approaching Others and to guard the camp while he decided what to do now.

"It seems clear that we'll not be able to use these caves that our memories told us about," Guban began after Trok and Yorga arrived. "Trok, what else do you recall from our ceremony when we searched our collective memories - - are there any other caves in this area that we might be able to use instead of the falling rock shelters?" Trok meditated for a long moment, then said: "There are other caves and shelters in this area that we might be able to use, but what if they are already occupied by the Others, too? And what if the Others won't allow us to pass through these lands to reach them?" Guban scratched his beard and grunted his acknowledgment of Trok's concerns. His people did seem to be caught between fire and ice at the moment. When Yorga signaled her desire to speak, he quickly allowed it. "Guban, do you remember the time when hunters of the Others attacked me and you drove them off so bravely?" "Of course," he replied, wondering what relevance this line of discussion had to the situation at hand, "I broke my leg defending you and a woman of the Others set it for me." "Yes, yes!" Yorga gestured excitedly, "the medicine woman of the Others named Ay-lah who understood how to speak properly, and who knew Mog-ur One-Eye in her childhood. The man she was traveling with said that he was getting near his home after making a long journey. That all happened not so very far away from here. Do you think that it is possible that these Others are his people, and that Ayla and her mate might be among them?"

Guban's hand reached for his amulet as he recalled the strange events with the blond woman of the Others who had set his leg so well that it no longer bothered him in the least. And the man of the Others - - he had actually helped by fighting off his own kind, the Others who were attacking Yorga! Yes, now Guban recalled, even the man…Dondalah was it?...was able to speak a little bit of Clan language. They had exchanged tokens of respect for one another, and it was not too long after that when Guban had been made leader of his cave. He had taken the cave bear tooth that the man Dondalah had given him and put it into his amulet for luck. How different his life might have turned out to be if not for the good fortune they had encountered in crossing paths with those two Others. What if these were actually Dondalah's people? Some of the Others who had just attacked his people had also been tall with blond hair. Would he be willing to meet and discuss some way out of their present difficulties? He turned to Yorga and thanked her by the look in his eyes and the tone in his voice when he said: "Yes Yorga, these could very well be Dondalah and Ay-lah's people. Perhaps we could somehow find them and talk to them." Trok could barely believe his ears - - how in the world would they find two specific Others among so many, who may or may not even live with these violent Others? He started to raise an objection, but then decided that he would just wait and see what Guban decided to do next.

Within a matter of days two of Guban's scouts returned to camp with news that a small party of Others was approaching, and that one of the women traveling with the Others was stopping periodically and, using the ancient Clan gestures that all Clan peoples could understand, saying that they came in peace and wanted to talk to the leader and the mog-ur of this cave of the clan. "How could a woman of the Others know our ancient gestures, Guban?" Guban quickly called Trok and Yorga to his side, and taking a small party of hunters with him for additional protection in case it was needed, told his scouts to lead them back towards the approaching Others. When they got close enough to the the party of Others, Guban and Yorga moved cautiously closer to get a view of the individuals who made up the Others. "There!" Yorga gestured excitedly, "the tall man and the blond woman by his side near the front of the group, are they Ay-lah and Dondalah?" Guban peered closely at the two Yorga had pointed out; he wanted to be absolutely certain that they were who he hoped they were before revealing their presence. After long minutes of observing the party of Others, he agreed with Yorga. Sending Trok and the rest of his hunters back a short distance into the woods, Guban and Yorga chose a spot to reveal themselves. He picked a spot where they could quickly run down a nearby heavily forested creek that led in the direction back towards his hunters if things turned out badly for them. He wanted nearby cover from thrown stones and spears if he needed it.

When Guban and Yorga stepped out from behind the trees they were using for cover, the Others were about 100 feet away. Their sudden appearance unnerved some, including Jondalar, but Ayla quickly stepped forward and gestured: "In the name of Ursus I greet you, Guban and Yorga." She had prepared Jondalar to do the same by teaching him the proper Clan signals, and now motioned him forward where he repeated Ayla's greeting, but pursuant to Ayla's instructions he greeted only Guban and ignored Yorga. They were all relieved when Guban returned their gestures, even trying his best to pronounce their names.


	15. Chapter 15

XV.

Jondalar

Jondalar sat nervously in front of the large fire that had been purposely built under a section of the stone shelter near where he and Ayla lived, but apart from any of the other Zelandonii homes that shared the space. Even when he consciously tried to reconstruct the astonishing series of events that had led to this ceremony, he could not believe how he came to be seated here. Surrounding the fire, and also seated, were Ayla and Zolena, along with Guban, Yorga and their mog-ur whose name he had learned was Trok. Jondalar didn't fully understand why his presence was required, but Ayla had insisted, telling him that there had to be a male of the Others present, or Trok would not lead the ceremony. Jondalar finally consented, against his better judgment, when both Ayla and Zolena all but begged him to set aside his fears of the spirit world and join them for the good of all the Zelandonia. Even then, he might have resisted had there not been another skirmish between some local hotheads and the flatheads camped a few days walk north of this fire that threatened to break out into full-fledged warfare if not stopped now rather than later.

Sitting and waiting for the ceremony to begin, Jondalar thought of how his chance encounter with Guban had led to this extraordinary moment - - Clan and humans about to share a spiritual journey intended to cement an agreement allowing Guban's people to pass through Zelandonii territory and claim some little-used caves and ledges on the extreme southern end of what was generally recognized as his people's lands. The opposition by a large number of the Zelandonii, and of many of the zelandonias, had been fierce and was still simmering. Their arguments had been largely twofold - - three if you counted the simple fear of, and prejudice against, flatheads. One was practical: The added strain that such numbers would put on the resources in Zelandonii territory. Guban had promised that his hunters would primarily hunt to the south of his new caves, but there could be no guarantee that they wouldn't come north, at least on occasion. The second principal objection was more esoteric - - that flatheads were not human and that treating them as human dishonored the Mother. The simple fact the Clan peoples revered a cave bear and animal totem spirits rather than recognizing Doni as the Great Mother of All, equated in many minds to blasphemy. The cry of "Mother-damned flatheads" was heard far more frequently now than ever before.

Guban

Unbeknownst to Jondalar and the Others, Guban had had very difficult time convincing a sometimes furious Trok to attend and lead this ceremony. When Guban had initially approached him about conducting a ceremony through which the recently negotiated cessation of hostilities with the Others could be cemented, Trok had wanted to have only a limited ceremony led by him that included only Clan men and Jondalar from the Others. He desired Jondalar's inclusion at the outset as a way of probing his mind during the ceremony to see if this Other's motives and feelings for peace were genuine. Trok still did not trust these Others. The first obstacle to overcome had been gaining Jondalar's agreement to participate, which had only finally been secured late in the proceedings.

When the Others had insisted that their mog-ur, plus Jondalar's mate Ayla - - both females! - - be included, Trok had balked again. Then Guban told him that if the Others were going to include women, then he wanted Yorga to be included as well. Trok's head had almost ignited trying to take in all of these competing demands and dangerous new precedents. Trok ultimately seemed persuaded by his realization that he was treading entirely new ceremonial territory here, and that the extraordinary circumstances his people found themselves in regarding these Others required extraordinary measures to resolve. That, and the fact that Guban had finally ordered Trok, on pain of exile, to perform the ceremony, had finally secured Trok's agreement.

Zolena/Zelandonia the First

Zelandonia the First knew that they were all treading dangerous waters here. Ayla had told her in detail about her two experiences with the sacred Clan root, once with the Clan's greatest Mog-Ur, and then again with the Mamutoi's mamut. Each time Ayla spoke of a "black void" that she had been entirely unable to avoid or control. Zolena was unfamiliar with the root in question, and had never encountered such a dangerous void on any spiritual or ceremonial journey that she had ever made. If something went wrong, she felt that she might be powerless to aid herself, much less anyone else on their journey here today. Ayla had told her of her Mamut's belief that it had been Jondalar's single-minded love for Ayla, and his pleas to the Mother, that had been the only reason that he and Ayla had made it back from their voyage using the root. And now Jondalar was going with them. She had gathered together as many family members and loved ones as she could on short notice to stay nearby and chant during their journey. Jondalar had also told her that Ayla's animals, especially Wolf and Whinney, had acted oddly when Ayla was in danger during that the ceremony with the Mamutoi. Zolena had therefore made arrangements for the animals to be kept close-by and closely observed during the ceremony. She hoped that it would be enough.

Zolena then tried to put her other huge worry into a compartment in the back of her mind, at least for the time being. Brangular was fast gaining additional support for his position that Ayla's presence had precipitated this crisis, and reminded her, and anyone else who would listen, about their earlier agreement to revisit the issue of Ayla's continued stay among the Zelandonii if her presence drew other flathead people or spirits to their caves. In Brangular's view, the arrival of Guban's people was proof positive that the evil flathead spirits that had caused Ayla to give birth to an Abomination - - her son Durc, a child of mixed Clan and human heritage that Ayla freely admitted to - - still lingered about her and were now drawing more animal flatheads to Zelandonii homes. Zelandonia the First had finally been forced to agree to a "full and public" airing of "the flathead problem" as a condition for gaining the agreement among the zelandonia of all the caves to not obstruct this ceremony where she now sat. What a disaster that was going to be…allowing the public airing of all the ugly prejudices, the angry posturing for personal gain (especially in Brangular's case - - he clearly saw this as an opening for his own rise to replacing her as The First) , all the grievances that anyone had against her, Ayla, Jondalar, or their families, and more. For now, though, Zolena had to put all of that out of her mind and concentrate on this ceremony.

Yorga

Yorga's ability to calm herself and maintain a Clan female's normal docility had never been more thoroughly tested. It had taken all of her persuasive abilities, as well as some adroit manipulation of both Guban and Trok on her part, to maneuver herself into this ceremony. She had been helped enormously by the Others' insistence that their female mog-ur ("Sol-na" was a close as she could come to pronouncing "Zolena") be included, and that Don-da-lah had insisted as a condition of his participation that his woman Ay-la also be made a participant. Suggesting to Guban that he would lose status if women of the Others were allowed to participate but not women of the Clan had swayed him. Her appeal to Trok had been less direct, but was no less successful in the end. She had reminded him that he had never conducted such a ceremony with any woman of any kind present, in accordance with ancient Clan traditions forbidding such involvement. "How do you know what kind of minds you will face during this ceremony, Trok? Not only will they be Others, but they will be female. Wouldn't it be prudent to have a female mind that is loyal to you and Guban, and most importantly a Clan female mind, in order to assist you in understanding the female Other minds you will meet?" she had asked. Trok had been angrier than she had ever seen him in the past, but he had ultimately relented, and she had been included.

Her own experiments on herself with various plants, herbs and mushrooms had opened her mind to new possibilities. She had greatly desired inclusion in such a ceremony, but to actually gain both Guban's and Trok's acceptance in such a relatively short period of time had her thanking her totem spirits at every possible occasion. She trembled with excitement when she saw Ay-la and Trok approaching the fire with the ceremonial bowl that held the sacred root.

Trok

Trok had fasted for days, purified himself, and meditated nearly every waking hour about this ceremony that he was about to lead. He was still torn and angry. He had resented Guban's ordering him to conduct the ceremony on pain of exile as if he were lowest ranked hunter instead of this cave's mog-ur. And he had seen through Yorga's intentions more clearly than she would have believed possible. Not that her points in regard to the minds of Others and females didn't have merit, but that she so obviously had been manipulating Guban, and even him, to get herself, a female, into this exclusively male ceremony. Trok did not know to a certainty what to expect during the upcoming ceremony, but he knew that he alone, of all the participants, could exert at least some control over the minds and spirits that he would lead today. He had allowed both Guban and Yorga to believe that he had finally agreed to this ceremony based upon their arguments and threats. But he had his own reasons, too.

He wanted to seek out and peer into the minds and spirits of these Others in order to ascertain their true intentions regarding the recently negotiated peace between his Clan people and these Others who now lived in the shelters that Clan people had lived in long ago. He didn't trust the Others at all, and he had been shocked by how much Guban and Yorga seemed to be under the spell of these two Others, Ayla and Jondalar, just because they had had a chance encounter with them in the past. Trok told himself that he would try to see if he could contact the minds of the female Others, but he would concentrate most of his energies during the ceremony on probing the mind of Jondalar. If he did not like what he found there, well…steps would be taken.

Ayla

Ayla realized how much was riding on this ceremony, not only for her, but for her family. Zolena had taken her aside and told her about the upcoming "full and public" airing of issues regarding her and the alleged effect she was having on the Zelandonii people. She forced herself to recall how far Jondalar had come from his initial horrified reaction upon learning that she had been raised by the Clan and had given birth to a mixed child, to his current acceptance of her and all of her past. She hoped that a similar evolution of thought might occur with the Zelandonii as a whole, but wondered at the visceral hatred in individuals like Brangular, who seemed to glory in their hatred of anything mixed or flathead. She recalled Frebec, and the members of Frebec's original camp like Chalag, who had also reacted to her past with hatred. But even that had seemed a lazy, stupid kind of hate compared to the focused and "intelligent" arguments fomented by some of the people here. Some of the religious leaders of the Zelandonii people, the zelandonia, even framed the argument using religious overtones that defined anyone who disagreed with their views as being "against the Mother", and therefore "not a good Zelandonii". Those arguments frightened her the most. When a peoples most fundamental beliefs were perceived to be under attack, she realized, they could react almost like a frightened herd of animals, stampeding in a panic and mindlessly crushing everything in their path before their panic subsided. And, she realized, such mindless stampedes could be manipulated by a skilled hunter up to and including driving an entire herd of animals right over a cliff to their deaths. She shuddered at this thought, shook her head, and turned her attention to the ceremonial bowl and roots in her hands.

She looked at the five other individuals sitting around the fire. She loved Jondalar as much as ever, and knew how frightened he was. He only agreed to go through with this ceremony at the insistence of Zolena and herself, after it became obvious that no ceremony would take place without him. She looked at him now and smiled, still dazzled by his eyes after all these years. So ice-blue in the sunlight, but so smoky and purple by firelight. Zolena looked preoccupied, but ready to proceed. She had come to love and trust Zolena, and had accepted Zolena's training in order to eventually to join the ranks of the zelandonia. Zolena had told her on numerous occasions that she believed Ayla's natural abilities already made her a capable zelandonia, but that her people, the Zelandonii, would never accept her as a true zelandonia without formal training.

Finally Ayla turned her attention to Guban and Yorga. She felt a closer bond to these two than to any Clan people since her days living at Brun's cave. She felt an almost physical tug of loss recalling Iza and Creb, and Brun and Uba, and most of all her son Durc whom she had left with the Clan when she had been cursed with death and forced to leave the cave. She suddenly realized that the tug had been real - - Trok had tugged gently on the wrap she wore around her otherwise naked body, which had been cleansed and purified for this ceremony, then decorated with large, dark, painted circles about her breasts, buttocks and stomach. She let the wrap drop and took the roots into her mouth to begin chewing them. It was a long, slow process, chewing the dried, long-dead roots to a pulp in order to release their magical properties for the ceremony. Her jaws ached, but after long effort she finally chewed enough of the root into a mash that could be mixed with water to prepare it for ingestion. She checked the color and consistency, and dabbed just the very tip of her tongue into the liquid to test for taste. She slowly added additional water until her instincts and her past experiences with the root told her that it was ready.

She then sat down at the fire with the others and passed the bowl to Trok so that he could begin the ceremony. When her hand touched his, she suddenly felt the cold breeze of a premonition pass over her. Trok had seemed closed off to her, and she had been unable to get a sense of either the man or the mog-ur. He had mostly refused to speak with her except on the most urgent, or trivial, matters, and she had interpreted this as a habit of most Clan males towards females in general, and female Others in particular. Still, her uneasiness lingered and she turned once more to Jondalar. Looking into his eyes and holding his hand eased some, but not all, of her fears. Then the ceremony began.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16.

Sitting now at the ceremonial fire, Trok wondered once again if he would be able to reach the minds of the Others at all. He also worried whether or not he would be able to lead them through the black void he always encountered when using the special root that made such mind-joining spiritual journeys possible, and then safely back to their own minds again. He had questioned Ayla in depth regarding her extraordinary experience with Mog-Ur One-Eye, and had been convinced that it was at least possible that he might be able to reach into the minds of these Others, if only in a more limited way. What he would have given to share the experience this Ayla did - - to travel back to the birth of the Clan of the Cave Bear with the Clan's greatest and most powerful mog-ur, and then beyond that and back in time to the very beginnings of life itself in the sea. What an amazing journey that must have been!

Realizing that his purposes here were much more limited and immediate, he drank a mouthful from the ceremonial bowl and passed it on to Guban. Guban drank, as did each of the others sitting around the fire. They all heard the chanting begin on the other side of the hide curtains separating the six of them from the people doing the chanting. Trok understood that the chanting was a custom of the Others when they embarked upon spiritual journeys, but he felt that it was a mostly useless gesture. One either had the strength to guide other minds upon these ceremonial quests, or one did not. But it did no harm, and his only request had been that the chanters not be in a position to actually witness the ceremony. It was bad enough that women and Others were present; he didn t need a whole mob of Others looking on as well.

Ayla began experiencing the now somewhat familiar sensations associated with the use of the sacred Clan root. The feeling of traveling without moving; of colors rushing past; and the incredibly real impression of falling, falling towards a bright light that she suddenly burst through were all reasonably manageable given her past history of using the root with Creb and Mamut. Once she reached the black void, however, her familiar dread returned. She never felt so lost, alone, and terrified as when she was floating weightless, without any means to move her spirit or otherwise control that inky darkness. She could hear, in the muffled distance, the chants of the Zelandonii onlookers, and that provided a point of reference, but she was still unable to use that point to move either towards or away from it - - the sounds were simply a part of the void. At random intervals she felt what may have been the vibrations of the spirits of some of the other participants in the ceremony, but she could not identify anyone. She felt only varying degrees of terror emanating from them, with no way to communicate with or even attempt to comfort them.

After drifting for some unknown period of tim - - she felt no passage of time whatsoever, only an endless now - - she suddenly perceived the spirit of Trok reaching out towards her. Although he was not in her mind the way that Creb had been during her experience with him, Trok was a more tangible presence within her than Mamut had been. She did, however, begin to re-experience the familiar sensation of her mind being gently probed by the Clan man. But Trok's probing seemed to be merely observational, as if he were somehow looking into her mind from a distance rather than being actually inside her head as she had felt with Creb. She tried mentally calling out: "Trok, can you hear me? I can feel you nearby but only vaguely. Please come closer if you can." She felt an intensification of his probing in response, and began to experience a vivid sequence of recent memories, almost as if she herself was only an observer of her own memories. She suddenly realized that she was, in fact, observing her own memories from another perspective because a part of her spirit had actually shifted into Trok's mind!

Trok immediately felt that his probing of Ayla's memories had turned into a two-way pathway. He immediately distanced his spirit from Ayla's and ousted her from his mind, but was shaken to his core. How had this woman of the Others done something that he had only previously experienced by melding his mind with the spirits of other experienced and powerful mog-urs? How much of his own mind, spirit, and purpose did Ayla perceive before he was able to sever the connection? In the short time he had been in close contact with her, he had discovered that Ayla was, indeed, exactly whom she presented herself to be - - a woman of the Others who was nonetheless also Clan. He sensed her sympathies for Guban and Yorga; her love for her mate Jondalar; her astonishing love for her animals; and her genuine desire for Clan and Others to co-exist peacefully. He had not been able to probe more deeply in the short time he was connected to her, but he sensed that Ayla carried dark secrets from deeper in her past that involved the Clan. He resolved to return to her spirit later, but in the meantime Trok resolved to keep only a tenuous connection between his spirit and Ayla's while he moved on to probing the other participants in the ceremony.

Ayla's mind was whirling from the sensations she had absorbed during her brief contact with Trok's spirit. She had experienced a somewhat similar melding with Creb's spirit when he had guided her all the way back to their common roots in the life-giving waters of the oceans, but Creb had remained firmly in control during the entire journey. She saw only as much of his mind as he permitted, and she had not had the sensation of actually seeing Creb's mind the way she had momentarily glimpsed into Trok's. When Trok cast her spirit away from his own, she initially experienced her familiar fear, but two things steadied her: First, she continued to feel a distant connection to Trok; and two, she felt that she had somehow come away with some of Trok's past experiences with the Clan root. The details escaped her for the moment, but she felt, given time and meditation on her part, that she just might be able to use her experience with Trok to help her negotiate the black void in the future. For the moment, though, she returned to floating in the void as Trok moved on to other minds.

While floating in the black void was still terrifying to Ayla, she had been there twice before and returned, therefore she attempted to control her fears and concentrate on anything she might be able to learn. She felt Trok's mind within her own, not really guiding and controlling her spirit as Creb had done, but Trok still felt much more present than Mamut's spirit had been during her spiritual journey with him. That helped her to control herself in this strangest of places. While Trok's mind was preoccupied with reaching out to and guiding all of the other participant's spirits during this ceremony, and in probing Jondalar's mind in particular, he was less aware of what was happening in Ayla's mind. She began to dream...or perhaps it was a vision.

At first Ayla became aware of the distant sound of a baby's cry. As she focused upon that sound, it grew and the darkness of the void began to recede just a bit. As she moved in the direction of the cries, she suddenly saw that she was standing outdoors, somewhere far away from any fires, torches or other sources of light. As she looked up into the nighttime sky, she observed the star that would someday come to be known as Mars shining a brilliant red. She had often wondered about this strange red star, and the other, whiter stars that moved about in the sky in such strange defiance of all the other stars that were permanently affixed to their one and only position in the heavens. What perplexed her in this vision, however, was that the baby's cries she had heard before now seemed to be coming directly from the red star. As she stood, watched and listened, she began to hear more babies crying. The nighttime sky of her vision began to fade as the cries became louder and louder.

Ayla suddenly found herself standing inside the blackness of a cold, dark cave. The red star had turned into the dying red embers of a small fire that had almost extinguished itself. She found herself surrounded by several bodies of dead Clan females and children. The only ones left alive were the babies, and they were all crying out for warmth, and comfort, and food. She walked out of the cave and saw, to her horror, that the ground outside was littered with the bodies of dozens, then hundreds, then uncountable thousands of Clan women and children. The cries of numberless Clan babies continued to grow until she was almost deafened, then suddenly stopped. She became aware that the figure of a Clan man was approaching her. He seemed to be moving quite slowly himself, but was approaching her very rapidly. Moments later, Creb, the great one-eyed, crippled Clan Mog-ur who had raised her from childhood stood before her. Ayla could see that Creb, too, was horrified by the scene before them, and he had a strangely mixed look of both extreme anger and great pity upon his grizzled brow.

"Creb, what happened? Who killed all of these people? Who would do such an terrible thing to these women and children?" Creb leaned heavily on his staff and peered at her. She could see that he was trying to control his anger as he spoke his next words. He spoke softly, and Ayla was surprised to realize that he was actually speaking to her, and not using his typical one-armed Clan gestures. But his words froze her heart. "Ayla, my daughter, you are responsible for all of this." As soon as his words hit her she found herself back in the black void, screaming in horror and denial. She knew that she would not, could not, ever do such a thing to even a single Clan woman or child.

Even as she struggled to reconcile what she had just been shown with what she knew about herself, she realized that another figure was approaching her, this time right there in the black void with her. She knew instantly that it was her other father-figure, the old Mamut of the Lion Camp. She moved towards him in the darkness and cried out for his help and comfort. "Mamut, tell me it isn't true; tell me Creb is wrong." "Ayla, my child, calm yourself and listen, for my time here with you is very short." Ayla felt his words inside of her more than she actually heard them, and they had the effect of immediately calming her and focusing her attention upon the ancient shaman. "Creb spoke the truth to you, although he phrased it more directly than I would have done. But then, it is his Clan peoples that are heading towards oblivion, not mine." Ayla felt her world begin to crash around her once again, but Mamut continued to speak and that provided her with an anchor to hold onto. "You will not, of course, actually go out and kill Clan women and children. But your mere existence, the mere fact that you have lived your life the way you were meant to as ordained by the Mother herself, will lead to the inevitable end of the Clan peoples everywhere. This was part of your destiny from the very beginning. Even Creb knows this, which is why he does not rage at you. But Ayla, you must also know that even as your life in this world comes as the very footsteps of doom for the Clan, you are also the Clan's one and only hope for survival. Take what comfort you can in that, for I cannot tell you more."

Ayla was devastated. How could she live with herself knowing that she had somehow doomed the people she first loved, the Clan, to this hideous fate? And if the Clan's women and children are fated to die, how could she be their only hope for survival? She recalled Jondalar's oft-stated observation that Those Who Serve speak with shadows on their tongues. But Mamut was not done with her quite yet. "Ayla...Ayla, you must pay careful attention to me for a bit longer. You will have need of great strength in the coming days, weeks and months. You cannot allow the visions you've had here today weaken your will to live, or divert you from the Mother's path for you. You will continue to be tested, almost beyond your ability to withstand. Remember that your totem is the Cave Lion, and that great lessons can be learned from hard testing. You must endure, and endure, and endure. Your life walks a knife's edge. Do not give up on this world, the Mother, or your own life. And remember always that you have been, and will continue to be, loved by many, most especially by the Mother of All who holds your destiny in her hands.

Suddenly Mamut was gone and she felt herself being pulled through the void and back towards the light. She heard chanting and saw firelight, then found herself back in her body. She quickly looked around at the other participants in the ceremony sitting or lying around the fire and realized that everybody seemed to have come back to themselves. Then she turned to Jondalar and discovered to her horror that he was lying beside her still, stiff and cold.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Jondalar felt as if he were floating in a warm pond of inky black terror. As the drug had taken hold of him he too felt as if he had passed thru unfathomable layers of light and darkness; colors of every hue, and more shades of gray than he thought existed. Perceptions of breathtaking speed alternating with periods of complete inertia mingled with fear and wonder. But when he had at last seemed to pass through and shatter a beacon of pure white light to enter this black void, he came to understand what fear really was. He tried to recall everything Ayla had told him about the void, but nothing she said had prepared him for this. Nothingness seemed to stretch out in all directions without end. And while nothing seemed to threaten him directly, or from any particular place or direction, it felt as if the blackness itself was lethally hostile to his spirit. He had even lost track of the chanting that had served to anchor him before entering this space. And then Trok came to him.

Trok's experience with the Clan root on this occasion had proceeded fairly normally at first. He had taken dozens of such spiritual journeys as both an acolyte, and then as the mog-ur of his clan. Upon entering the black void that had to be traversed on every such journey involving this particular root, he had initially sought out Guban's spirit, linked to it, and oriented him such that he was at peace in the spiritual darkness. Trok then sought out Yorga, briefly probed her female Clan mind, and found that the process was quite similar to linking with male Clan minds. Bolstered by that discovery, he next approached the Other's female spiritual leader. He didn't think of her as in any way being a Zelandoni mog-ur, but he recognized a kindred spirit insofar as dealings with the spiritual realm went. Once again he probed cautiously, and took pains to remain at a metaphysical arms-length from this female of the Others of unknown powers. He had learned from Ayla that this particular female was called The First, and that she was the highest and most powerful spiritual leader among this cave of the Others. He was therefore surprised to find her to be in far greater fear than he had sensed from Yorga. Perhaps these Others were not as spiritually advanced as the Clan peoples. Perhaps the Great Cave Bear, or the totem spirits, did not protect these Others the way they protected the Clan. Trok contented himself with simply comforting this female's spirit, and trying his best to reduce her level of fear to manageable levels. He wanted to move on to Ayla, and especially Jondalar, well before the effects of the root began to wear off. He could always return to this female, and to Yorga later on.

Trok next sought out Ayla's spirit. After his experiences with Yorga, and then the most powerful female of the Others, he was confident that he would experience no unexpected surprises in dealing with this young female mate of Jondalar. When he began to approach her and felt the familiar aura of terror that seemed to emanate from the spirits of the Others, he let his guard down and decided to simply immerse himself in this weak and fearful spirit to learn what he could about her and her people as quickly as possible and then move on. As such, he did not perceive that although Ayla was indeed still terrified of the black void, she was not mindless with fear. As Trok opened his mind towards Ayla, he did not conceive of even the possibility that Ayla might open her mind to his own. And even if Trok had anticipated that occurrence and guarded against it, he would have yet been utterly unprepared for what actually, incredibly, happened - - that Ayla's spirit reached out and moved towards his own.

For a brief few seconds Trok's and Ayla's spirits had touched and melded in a way that he had only previously experienced with other experienced Clan mo-gurs during the most sacred ceremonies at the Clan Gatherings that occurred every seven years. During those spirit-melding moments, each mog-ur not only shared their own spirits, but in a very real way they shared their spirits with the entire Clan. The most powerful mog-urs were sometimes able to take the combined spirits of all the mog-urs on fantastic spiritual journeys during these joinings. Journeys to far places and distant times in the past that one or more of their ancestors had experienced and shared. And tales existed of some, few, mog-urs so gifted that they could take the joined spirits all the way back to the very beginnings of life in the seas. The Great Mog-Ur One-Eye had been one of those supremely gifted mog-urs, and Trok had dreamed all of his life about being able to participate in such a journey. He had learned from Yorga that Ayla claimed to have had a spiritual experience with Mog-Ur One-Eye, and it was Trok's curiosity about that alleged experience that led him to keep the link with Ayla's spirit intact for those few seconds, rather than instantly expelling her from his own mind.

But those few seconds of pure melding had become a two-way line of spiritual communication, he quickly discovered. For every moment his spirit observed and absorbed Ayla's thoughts and life experiences during those few precious seconds, she was absorbing his own. Not only was a mere female learning the closely guarded rituals and secrets of Clan males and mog-urs, it was a female of the Others! He immediately reacted to expel her from his mind and sent her spirit reeling back into the void. He then cautiously re-approached her to see if he could get any sense of what she might have actually learned. He sensed only fear and confusion through this much more tenuous connection, and decided that even if this Ayla had momentarily glimpsed his own mind, she would not be able to understand or make use of it. His experience with Ayla, however, angered him, and he resolved to investigate Jondalar's spirit with much more vigilance and control.

As Trok approached Jondalar's spirit in the void, he was surprised to find that this male spirit of the Others emanated even more terror than the female spirits he had encountered. "But", he mused, "Ayla's spirit had also radiated fear - - perhaps this is just a clever ruse on Jondalar's part to lure me into his mind too. I will not be so unprepared this time." Trok paused for a few moments to meditate and build up his inner defenses to keep Jondalar's spirit from entering his own. He resolved to go into this spirit with much more power and control. He would show these Others what a Clan mog-ur could do when properly prepared for a struggle in the spiritual realm. Calling upon the Great Cave Bear and his own totem spirits for aid and power, he took control of Jondalar's spirit.

At first Jondalar was relieved to feel Trok's spirit arrive. Any alternative to the black terror felt like a reprieve. But this was no comforting presence, he quickly realized; instead his mind felt as if it were being pried open by force and then flayed, layer by layer. He saw his entire life laid bare to Trok's invading gaze, and there was nothing he could do to hide even the smallest detail. While Jondalar was utterly unable to see, feel, or understand exactly what parts of his life were being peered at and reviewed by Trok, he knew that his whole life was as open to Trok's spiritual gaze as an open meadow would be to him on a sunny day. He felt far more naked and vulnerable than he ever felt in his physical body. And there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it.

Trok had indeed taken hold of Jondalar's spirit with an iron grip. There would be no melding of any kind, accidental or otherwise, from this Other's spirit. Although the time that Trok maintained his spiritual meld with Jondalar lasted perhaps only a short few minutes in the real world, in this realm of the spirits he felt like he had the luxury of almost unlimited time to explore every nook and cranny of Jondalar's mind and spirit. He was struck initially at how paradoxically strong and weak this male of the Others was when it came to females. While Jondalar had seemingly spent the largest portions of his life treating females in an almost Clan manner by simply using them to relieve his own needs and taking pleasure from them where and when he desired, there were several times where this male had almost entirely surrendered himself to a female. At these times Trok sensed a willingness on Jondalar's part to almost become female himself. He seemingly lived only to please these particular females and craved their love to an embarrassing, to Trok, degree. "How could a man of the Others surrender his own manhood to a female?" thought Trok. "Are all Other males this weak and stupid when it comes to women?"

Trok probed further and discovered that Jondalar thought of such displays as "love", and that such loves had led Jondalar to periods of jealously, self-loathing, and even violence in his youth. He saw another man of the Others lying on the ground with broken teeth; he saw Jondalar's subsequent banishment from his own cave and his own people as a result; he saw a long journey during which Jondalar seemed to be falling in love again, but never mated; and finally he saw a chance meeting with Ayla in a lonely cave. Trok paused here as he sensed something important. Jondalar had been mauled by a cave lion, and his companion killed, then rescued by this Ayla. Trok knew from Guban and Yorga that Ayla was a skilled medicine woman, but he learned that she was in fact astonishingly skilled by the ways she saved Jondalar's life.

"But what is this?" Trok wondered, as he sensed a separation between Ayla and Jondalar during Jondalar's recovery from his wounds. He probed deeper and was appalled by what he learned. This man of the Others believed that Clan people were animals! And that for a women of the Others to merely submit to the sexual needs of Clan man, as all females in nature do for the males of their respective species, was to label her outcaste unclean! As if the mere presence of a Clan man made her filthy and unmateable! And then Trok saw that Ayla had given birth to a mixed child, both Clan and Other, and saw what Jondalar's reaction had been when he had learned of the child. "Abomination?" Trok thought, "the mere existence of such a baby turned both mother and child into such untouchable, horrifying beings that they would be shunned, driven from their homes, and even killed on some occasions? What sort of monsters were these Others?"

Trok backed away from Jondalar's spirit at that point, and thus never learned of the growth and maturation of Jondalar that led to his acceptance of Ayla's past, including her half-Clan son. Trok never perceived that Jondalar now fully accepted the Clan as human and deserving of a place in the world. He never perceived the genuine bond that grew between Jondalar and Guban as a result of their chance encounter years ago. All Trok took from Jondalar's spirit was an intense hatred of all things Clan - - a hatred he had learned from his own Zelandonii people, and a belief he shared with them.

Having learned all he cared to learn about these Others, Trok decided to end this spiritual journey and return to himself. A lifetime of training that he should never deliberately leave a spirit behind in the void caused him to guide all of the spirits, both Clan and Others, back out of the blackness. But his anger still simmered strongly within him as he tried to make up his mind about what to do with the spirits of the Others once out of the void. He decided that he would return the two Other females fully to themselves, but that Jondalar's spirit would be left to fend for itself in the less inhospitable spiritual realm outside the void. Perhaps Jondalar's spirit would be able to find its own way back to his body. Perhaps the Others' "First" would be able to assist him. Perhaps not. In any event, Trok washed his hands of Jondalar's spirit and left it to its own devices. When he awoke to himself, he was still satisfied that he had made the correct decision.

"Jondalar!" Ayla screamed. "Jondalar hasn't come back yet! Zolena, come quickly." Zolena was still groggy from the experience she had just undergone, but her training allowed her to quickly sweep away the mental cobwebs and turn her attention to Jondalar. She saw that Ayla was bent over Jondalar, examining him quickly but thoroughly, and opening up his clothing to allow him to breathe. "Tell me what you see, Ayla", the First said in a tone both concerned and demanding. Ayla thought for a moment, then summed up what she had learned in the first few moments of her examination: "He is alive, but cold. His eyes are closed. He is breathing, but only very shallowly, and much more slowly than usual. His heart is beating, but only faintly." She pinched him on the arm, then much more forcefully on his cheek. "He is unresponsive to touch or pain." She then lifted his eyelids open and passed a torch back and forth in front of his eyes. "His eyes don't move to follow the light, and his pupils do not open or close in response to the brightness of the torchlight." She thought for a moment, then lifted her arm and slapped Jondalar sharply across his face. There was no reaction at all. Ayla grabbed her otter skin medicine bag and fished out several different small bags. She opened one directly under Jondalar's nose then placed her hand over his mouth, forcing him to inhale through his nose. The sharp, strong scent of that herb should have made him sneeze and cough, or at least wrinkle up his nose in distaste, but he did not react. She next opened his mouth and placed a small amount of another, extremely bitter, herb on his tongue. "He isn't reacting at all to either strong odor or bitter tastes." She then opened a small water bag that lay nearby and poured a small amount carefully into Jondalar's mouth. She was relieved when he reflexively swallowed it down. "At least he will swallow water placed inside his mouth," Ayla said.

Zolena turned to Trok and demanded: "What is the meaning of this?" Trok merely glared at her in silence. Although he guessed that she was asking him for some kind of information about Jondalar, he could neither make out her exact question nor respond to her in any way she would understand. Instead he turned to Guban and signed: "We should leave here. Now. I have learned a great deal from these Others that I need to tell you. We are not truly welcome here and our lives may be in danger. I believe that the Others will allow us to pass through their territory and live in the caves to the south, but we should travel quickly and not return." Ayla was now watching Trok, Guban and Yorga, and although Trok's back was turned to her thus concealing what he was saying to Guban, she was able to see Guban sign back: "Trok, what happened to Jondalar?" Ayla rose quickly to her feet, strode over to the Clan trio, and using the ancient sign language that all Clan peoples understand, said: "Yes, Trok, please tell me what happened to Jondalar and how we can return him to himself."

Trok took a moment to compose himself. He knew from his discussions with Guban and Yorga that this Ayla was quite fluent in their language. He had also just learned from his experience with Ayla's spirit that she had indeed grown up with a Clan as she said she had. She would therefore likely be able to read facial expressions and body language as well as any Clan female. He would have to be very careful to tell her only the truth insofar as he could, and to simply refrain, as was his right as both Clan and male, to tell her what he did not want to say. Using the ancient signs would also make things easier for him, because he would be far less likely to slip up in some small way than if he used the common, everyday signs of his cave. He observed Ayla closely before he began to speak, and noted that although she was emotionally distraught, she gave no overt sign that she believed that he had anything to do with Jondalar's current state. Trok began: "I brought Jondalar's spirit out of the black void at the end of our shared journey, and guided his spirit, along with all of the other spirits, back towards their respective bodies. The actual return to the body is often left to the individual spirit. A spirit usually has the strength to return to the body once it is in close proximity. But sometimes a spirit lacks the strength, or is somehow impeded, from completing its return to the body. One either has the strength to return to one s body, or one does not. Spiritual journeys are sometimes perilous. There are Clan stories and legends that involve people who have made such journeys and died, or whose spirits got lost in the other realm and never returned. Who can say how or why it happens in each instance. Only Ursus knows," Trok concluded. And then, to push the conversation in another direction, he asked: "Are there not such stories among the Others as well?"

Ayla studied Trok carefully. There had been an air of careful speaking on Trok's part, but that might have been for several reasons, including conversing with a female, conversing with one of the Others, or use of the ancient language. Ayla took a moment to try her best to memorize what Trok had said for later reflection, then turned to Zolena who was both impatient with all of the Clan gestures that she couldn't begin to decipher, and distraught about Jondalar. His family had come to take his body away to his home while they discussed the matter with Trok. Ayla told the First what Trok had told her and added that she couldn't detect any sure signs of deception or falsehood. Zolena confirmed that she personally knew of instances where participants involved in spiritual journeys and ceremonies had died before returning to their bodies. Ayla shared that the last time she had used the root herself with the Mamut of the Mamutoi that both of them had come perilously close to not returning. Recalling that Mamut had implied to her that Jondalar's powerful love for her, and his pleading with the Mother for her return, had played a role in her return, she resolved to beg the same of the Great Mother of All.

But first she returned her attention to Trok, who was preparing to depart. "Trok, is there anything, anything at all, that either you can do, or that you can suggest we do, to help return Jondalar to his body?" Feeling trapped for a fleeting moment by the sudden question, he groped for a reasonable response. "Ayla, there are always things I could try on a Clan man. But Jondalar is a man of the Others. The Others do not recognize Ursus; the Others do not recognize Clan totem spirits. How would I appeal to the Clan spirits for help on behalf of someone who doesn't even believe in them? I do not know the ways of your "Mother", and I do not know of any ceremonies that aid the spirits of Others. Can't your female mog-ur do anything for your mate?" Ayla again felt the aura of a not-quite-full responsiveness in Trok's demeanor during his answer, but simply thanked him and then turned her attention to the First. "We have work to do."

Over the next hours, then days, then weeks, Ayla and the First did everything possible they could think of to aid Jondalar's spirit and return it to his body. Ayla brought family members, friends, and even the animals to Jondalar's bedside in hopes that something might wake him up. She begged the Mother, made offerings, burned candles, and conducted both Clan and Zelandoni rituals. But nothing caused any response. Zolena had gathered all of the zelandonia together to seek a solution. Multiple searches for Jondalar's spirit were conducted. Medicines of all varieties were discussed, selected, and administered to Jondalar. But nothing worked.

Jondalar would swallow small mouthfuls of water, and even food that was sufficiently ground up and liquefied, but he had begun to lose a significant amount of weight. Ayla had begun moving his arms and legs through their full range of motion several times a day when she noticed that his limbs were beginning to stiffen with disuse. She, along with several family members, took turns massaging his body to help promote circulation and comfort, and hopefully, to let Jondalar know on some deep level that he was still being cared for by his loved ones and would know that he had not been forgotten or abandoned. On several occasions, in private, Ayla had even attempted to arouse Jondalar by kissing and stroking him in ways that she knew pleased him. She tried everything that they had ever done together, and experimented with even more. But her heart was not truly in it, and there were no obvious signs of arousal. She thought she detected quickened breathing on some occasions, and that his skin sometimes flushed, but Jondalar remained inert and unresponsive.

All the while there were contentious currents swirling in the social fabric of the Zelandonii people. All were united in concern about Jondalar, but clear and growing divisions appeared in regard to what to do about it. Some felt that the Mother wanted to take Jondalar back to Her and therefore he should be allowed to die. Others wanted to begin raiding the flatheads who had just been allowed to cross Zelandonii territory to reach new caves far to the south. These people contended that it was obvious that the flathead holy man had either caused or allowed Jondalar's spirit to remain stuck on the other side, and that the flatheads should all be run off or killed. Flatheads weren't really human anyway. Brangular was a leading voice among both the zelandonia and the people in general in criticizing the First, Ayla, and anybody who spoke about peace and restraint when it came to flatheads. He reminded the First of her agreement that if any flatheads showed up in Zelandonii territory, that the issue of Ayla's presence drawing them would be revisited in a public fashion. The First resisted his initial calls for such proceedings on the ground that all of their time should be spent working to restore Jondalar to his body. But as the weeks went by and no progress was made with Jondalar, more and more people, and zelandonias, began siding with Brangular.

Things had reached a boiling point by the time a new group of strangers arrived at the Ninth Cave.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The mixed band of Mamutoi and Sharamudoi hunters continued to travel south and west away from the Great Mother River. They were generally heading towards the west, looking to eventually find the Zelandonii territories. But they decided to avoid the Great Mother River itself and travel overland after they had gone as far west on the river as their boats could travel. They knew that they could have followed the river on foot to its source, and that somewhere west of there was a plateau glacier they would have to cross, or find a way around. But it would be the wrong season to cross that glacier by the time they hoped to reach it, so they decided to try to go around the glacier that was simply too dangerous to cross after the Spring melt had arrived. After some discussion, they decided to try to find a route south around the glacier. A northern route was known, but because that was flathead territory and more and more clashes with flatheads had been reported at both of the summer meetings they had just attended, the southern path seemed more prudent.

Ranec, Danug and Latie were walking together at the front of the small band of travelers, a short distance ahead of the five Sharamudoi journeying with them through the grasslands and rounded hills they were currently traversing. They were enjoying the summertime warmth and the pleasant breezes that bent the stalks of the various grasses that were about waist-to-shoulder high now, but that they knew would grow to heights over their heads in the near future. There were making good time, hunting and gathering as they traveled, having no trouble staying healthy and fed. In accordance with their travel plans, the three Mamutoi had departed early from their summer meeting at Eagle camp, and had then traveled directly to the Sharamudoi for a visit on their way west. They had arrived at the Sharamudoi caves and ledges during the latter portion of their summer meeting as well. They stayed several weeks, during which time they had made many new friends and reminisced with both Shamudoi and Ramudoi men and women who had known Jondalar and Thonolan, and later Jondalar and Ayla, when they had lived there in the past. When they made ready to depart the Sharamudoi and continue their journey west, they were surprised, and pleased, when a number of their new friends had approached them and asked to join them for the remainder of their trip. Of the dozen or so who had expressed initial interest, five had finally set out with them when they departed. The band of eight had quickly proven to be a compatible group, with complementary skills and abilities.

"When I first saw Darvelo, I thought just for a moment that I was seeing Jondalar again" said Danug. "In that Zelandonii shirt he was wearing, from a distance I thought that maybe he and Ayla had stopped and settled down with the Sharamudoi." "Not likely," said Latie, "Jondalar is so completely a Zelandonii that he'd never settle down anywhere else." Ranec just nodded in agreement as they made their way through the grasslands. He had become much less outgoing over the years since Ayla left, his easy, outgoing personality having been tempered by heartbreak and grief. He wasn't sour or bitter, just less social and more private. He would join in conversations and could still be quick-witted at times, but his trademark humor and broad smiles were now far less common. "Darvelo's a good hunter, and a fine toolmaker," said Ranec, keeping the conversation centered on the young man while guiding it away from talking about Jondalar and Ayla. "You can tell that he has both a natural feel for the stone, and that he has received some good instruction at the craft". "Well, he speaks warmly of the relationship that Jondalar had with his mother Serenio when he and Thonolan stayed with them for a while," said Danug, "and he credits Jondalar with getting him started on learning about flintnapping." All three of them were well aware of Jondalar's toolmaking skills, and that he had learned even more techniques from the Mamutoi master flintknapper, and Ranec's father, Wymez, while he lived with the Mamutoi. If he had taught Darvelo introductory stoneworking skills, then they knew Darvelo had received a fine early education.

"I can understand Darvelo wanting to come along with us…he seems to still be taken with his memories of both Ayla and Jondalar," said Latie, "but I still wonder what made the other four decide to leave the Sharamudoi and travel with us." Danug and Ranec looked at each other and exchanged smiles. "Um, I think that probably has a lot to do with you, little sister," said Danug. "Me?" she replied, genuinely surprised, "why do you say that?" "Well, just think about it Latie," said Ranec, "you practically lived at their hearth while we visited the Sharmudoi, and, well…you all five seemed to be, ah…very well matched during the Mother festivals." Danug grinned and Latie blushed. "They were just being hospitable" she said, "and because both couples were young and freshly mated, they had become cross-mates very recently and not yet settled into a new routine. " "Right," said Ranec, with a wolfish gleam in his dark eyes, "and because they were also new to the Mother's gifts of pleasures you were more than willing to guide and teach them, weren't you?" Latie's blush deepened, but she smiled and shot back, "Well, it's not like you and Danug were exactly celibate, were you?" "Well, sure, we enjoyed the Mother's own during the festivals," replied Danug, "but, Great Mother Latie, it seemed that every time I turned around you were with one, two, or all four of them." The three of them laughed, Latie from the realization that her time spent with the Sharamudoi cross-mated couples hadn't been quite as private as she thought it was, and Danug and Ranec in appreciation of Latie's obvious appeal and strong appetites when it came to the Mother's gift of pleasures.

The five Sharamudoi who had been trailing the three Mamutoi moved up when the heard the laughter, wanting to join in on the conversation and find out what was so funny. "So what are you three finding to be so humorous on this fine, sunny day?" asked Darvelo as he caught up. Danug and Ranec noted that although Darvelo had directed his question to all three of them, he moved in closely to Latie. Darvelo was well aware of Latie's appeal, and had heard many rumors about her skill in the furs. Although he was somewhat intimidated by her, he was also determined to get to know her better during this journey, even if it was just to be as her friend. She was a fine hunter, a good healer, and had many stories to tell about her travels to various camps as her Lion Camp's messenger. And although he doubted that he could ever bring himself to tell her so, he thought that she was beautiful, too. About that time, the other four Sharamudoi caught up. Ranec was suddenly struck by the fact that, although he still considered himself to be a relatively young man, in this company he was clearly the eldest. Latie and Danug were still in their late teens, and Darvelo and the others were even younger. As such, Ranec was treated as the de facto leader of the combined group, although there was nothing formalized about the arrangement.

In answer to Darvelo's question Ranec said: "We were just re-living some of the high points of our visit with your people, Darvelo." "Well then" said Rameo, who had just caught up, "you must have been talking about Latie." The other three caught up seconds later and smiled. Rameo's mate Elisa, and their cross-mates Barono and Filandia, were all fond of the Mamutoi hunters they had joined, but they had all four become very close to Latie during the few short weeks that they had been together so far. "We were", said Danug, "but we were also thinking about all of you, and about Ayla and Jondalar as well." "I wish we had been able to meet those two when they visited us" said Elisa. "Especially Jondalar", smiled Filandia. "Too bad we four were living at another Sharamudoi settlement cave at that time," said Barono. "Not to mention that we were all still just children at that time," added Rameo. "Many of the Sharamudoi women still tell tales of Jondalar's prowess in the furs," said Filandia, turning towards Latie, "was he really all that they say he was?" Latie looked down and replied, "I wouldn't know, he and I never shared pleasures." Everybody could see that the question had bothered Latie, so the group quickly changed the subject out of empathy for her feelings, although all five of the Sharamudoi would have liked to have heard more.

"What do you all think of the reports that flatheads are moving south in large numbers all of the sudden?" asked Ranec. "We heard numerous reports at both our own Mamutoi summer meeting, and at your Sharamudoi meeting, that they have crossed the Mother River in numerous areas and are encroaching on the territories of both our peoples." "Not just our peoples, Ranec," said Darvelo, "we've had visitors from the west over the past few years that tell us that flatheads have even clashed with other caves over hunting grounds and empty caves that are nearby - - some say too closely nearby - - the caves of Earth's children from here all the way to the Great Western Sea." "Some say that the great ice mountains are moving south, bringing more severe winters and shorter summers with them," chimed Rameo. "That may very well be true", said Ranec. "Our people hunt mammoth every year in the same areas north of our Mamutoi settlements, and I used to use a huge block of ice that had broken off a glacier many years ago as a marker to judge the movement of the ice mountains." He added, "The glaciers seemed to be retreating a number of years ago, but the last couple of times we headed north for mammoth hunts the ice had not only returned to the place where the block was, but had even overrun it." "The Great Mother River has acted as the boundary line between the flatheads and our people for as long as anyone can recall," said Barono, "but if the ice is moving south bringing unendurable winters with it, then sooner or later they'll cross the river in our region as well."

They all continued walking, each thinking variations of the same thought. Finally Latie spoke up: "What do you all think we should do if we run across a band of flatheads while we're on this journey?" The eight of them discussed the issue for many miles thereafter, with solutions ranging from killing any flatheads they find, to staying as far away as possible. None of the Sharamudoi had had any personal encounters with flatheads, having only seen fleeting glimpses of them on rare occasions across the Mother River. Ranec, Danug and Latie took turns telling the others about the half-flathead, half-human child named Rydag that the Mamutoi had taken in and raised, and how Ayla had taught them to speak some rudimentary flathead hand signals. They also mentioned Ayla's own mixed son, and how she had been raised as a little girl by a band of flatheads. Finally, they shared the stories that Mamut had told them of the journey he took in his youth, and how he had been injured, then cured by a flathead medicine woman. "Our Mamut even said that he found his own way to the Mother as a result of his time spent living with flatheads," said Ranec. The Sharamudoi youngsters were surprised, and at some points shocked, to learn that flatheads could "talk" in their own way, and that they had good medicine women, holy men called "mog-urs", and that they seemed so…human. "I think that if we run into any flatheads, we should be careful and take precautions to protect ourselves," said Latie, "but that if the opportunity arises, maybe we could try to communicate with them." But no consensus was reached, and some of the Sharamudoi were openly skeptical about the possibility of establishing some kind of discussion with flatheads. Besides, they were heading south and west and didn't expect to run into any flatheads on their travels. The group continued on into the evening, watching as the sun went down behind some rolling hills to the west. They stopped to camp at a pleasant spot near a small but lively stream, and settled down for the night.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Danug sat by the fire and watched his sister Latie approach from the far side of the campsite. It was a warm and sultry evening and she was wearing only a brief loincloth. As he watched Latie move closer, he took advantage of the moment to closely scrutinize her. She had a light sheen of perspiration on her tanned skin that not only gave testimony to the humid summer night, but also to her recent, and noisy, exertions while sharing pleasures with some of their new traveling companions. Danug wondered in admiration, once again, at his sister's obvious appeal, her voracious appetites, and her stamina, regarding the Mother's gift of pleasure. Or in her case, he thought, gifts of many and varied pleasures. He studied her figure, as if for the first time, and tried to discern the secret of her appeal to so many men and women. She was tall, in fact taller than any member of Lion Camp except for Talut, Tulie and Danug himself. Her figure was slim, but not scant; given more to lean length than obvious curves, but she was very well put together, he thought, balanced and proportioned in pleasing ways. He recalled that Ranec occasionally referred to her as a walking work of art, although his appreciation of her extended only to the visual. As far as Danug knew, Ranec had never shared pleasures with her. Her long legs gave evidence of the fact that she was already, even at her young age, the Camp's fastest runner and best long-distance messenger. And she was quite possibly going to one day become the best hunter in Lion Camp.

Her face was open and friendly, and even he thought she was pretty, but he knew from others that she was not considered to be one of the most beautiful Mamutoi women. Nonetheless, her large, bright eyes and quick, mischievous smile, combined with high cheekbones and a small nose made her extremely appealing. And she had another quality about her that he couldn't quite put a label on. She seemed to be one of those rare women who radiated health and vitality, along with a certain languid, unforced sensuality without even trying. And when she did try, there didn't seem to be a man, or a woman for that matter, who could resist her charms.

Although Latie was essentially celibate during the winters at Lion Camp, she had a history of more than making up for it at the Mamutoi summer meetings, and during her visits to other camps and peoples. Because she was Lion Camp's messenger, she visited neighboring camps more often than other members of her camp, and she became very well known. Those trips had also helped shape her personality into one that was warm and friendly, and she was one of those lucky individuals who was almost universally well-liked. Because of her formidable hunting skill, and her gradually growing skills as a healer, she was always welcomed for her ability to contribute to any camp, in almost any situation. In short, she was a young woman of high value, born to the hearth of the leader of Lion Camp, and seemingly destined for a long and successful life. And yet, Latie seemed to suffer from a constant restlessness; a need to see new sights, meet new people, and do new things with her life. She never seemed to be happier than when, as now, she was on a journey to someplace new.

Latie sat down beside Danug at the campfire and heaved a sigh. Recalling the recent sounds of pleasures coming from the darkness only minutes before, and seeing the look of sleepy contentment on Latie's face, Danug said: "It's a good thing that Ranec and Darvelo can sleep through a thunderstorm when they're tired from traveling. I thought that you and those Sharamudoi were going to wake the dead with your pleasures." He smiled to let her know he was only teasing, but he was, in fact, in awe of his sister's stamina and her almost endless abilities in sharing the Mother's gift. Her reputation for enthusiastic, often marathon, pleasures, frequently with multiple partners, was well known and she was a favorite at every ceremony to honor the Mother. Latie smiled back at him, batted her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, and said: "Can I help it if all four of them wanted to share the Mother's gift with me tonight? They are all young, healthy and attractive, and just because they are two married couples who are cross-mated to one another doesn't mean that they aren't interested in someone new on occasion." "Ha!" Danug laughed, "On occasion? Or is every night of this journey a 'new occasion' to you?" She laughed too, and then looked into the fire.

Danug had always enjoyed just sitting and talking with his sister, and this journey had afforded them ample time to explore each others' thoughts and feelings. In many ways they were quite similar, but they had their differences as well, both physically and temperamentally. Danug had developed into a tall and extremely muscular man. But unlike the man of his hearth, Lion Camp's leader Talut who was a huge bear of a man, Danug was much more classically mesomorphic, with wide powerful shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist, giving him a much more V-shaped torso than Talut. He shared an open, friendly face with his sister, and many people said they looked somewhat alike. Women were attracted to him, and he enjoyed their company, but he was more private and shy by nature, and didn't share his sister's seemingly endless appetites. And while Latie enjoyed the company of both men and women, Danug confined his own pleasures to women. Danug believed that he would one day find the 'one right woman' for him, and would tie the knot with her and settle down to have a family. He wasn't sure what Latie believed.

So he asked. "Do you ever think of settling down with just one man, and having children?" She looked up at him, wondering if he was being critical of her lifestyle, or if he was thinking more along the lines of them one day being brother-sister leaders of their own camp of Mamutoi, or if he was just making curious conversation. She countered: "Well, do you?" Danug noticed the evasiveness of her reply, but thought for a moment and decided to answer as honestly as he could. "Yes," he said, "I hope to find such a woman one day, but so far I haven't met anyone that I've felt would be my perfect mate. Well, unless maybe you count Ayla," he finished with a grin. "That's right!" Latie exclaimed, "You used to follow Ayla around with your big, sad wolf-puppy eyes when she lived with us, didn't you?" Danug blushed a crimson red, but laughed and nodded his head before replying: "I guess I did - - she was the first woman who ever had that effect on me. All I wanted to do was to be near her. It didn't really matter to me that I couldn't touch her, and that I usually couldn't think of a single thing to say to her. It was enough just to be close." Danug shifted his legs for comfort, then continued: "I think that maybe part of my problem now with the idea of settling down is that no one else has ever hit me quite the way that Ayla did." Danug smiled, shifted his weight again, and bounced the same question back to Latie: "So, now that I've exposed my soft, pink emotional underbelly to you, it's time for you to answer my original question - - are you ever going to settle down with just one man?"

"And just why would it have to be one man?" she replied, "Maybe I'll co-mate with two or more men. Or perhaps I'll settle down with just one woman. Or even co-mate with a man and a woman!" Danug thought for a moment, then asked: "Do you want to have children?" He was surprised by a fleeting look of pain that passed over Latie's face, then at the traces of bitterness in her voice when she said: "What makes you think that I can even have children? I have honored the Mother and shared Her gifts of pleasure as much or more than any woman I know. I was one of the youngest redfoots at the Mamutoi Summer Meetings for two years in a row and I took my responsibilities very seriously. I've taken lovers of almost every type, from almost every camp I've visited. And I've never felt life begin to stir within me, not even a single time." He saw an angry tear begin to form in the corner of Latie's eye, and he got up to move over next to her and put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. "Hey, now, c'mon Latie", he said, in his warmest voice, "Maybe the Mother is waiting until you meet the right man…the perfect man for you. Perhaps you're destined to meet him on this journey, and the Mother doesn't want to burden you with children before you've found him."

"No", she replied, "My problem is the same as yours, big brother. I've already met my perfect man, but he didn't want me." Danug was stunned. "I've never known anyone who would turn you down, Latie. Who are you talking about?" Latie looked down into the flames and shook her head. It was her turn to be embarrassed. "Did you know that I begged our mother to ask Tulie to get Jondalar to be the man who initiated me into the gift of pleasures at my First Rites ceremony? And, after I became a woman at First Rites, that I frequently followed Jondalar around that summer trying my best, in my own inexperienced way, to seduce him into sharing pleasures with me?" "No", Danug said, "I didn't know that." "That's because you were too busy mooning over Ayla," she laughed. "Maybe so", Danug agreed, "but did Jondalar ever say why he wouldn't share pleasures with you? If I recall he was spending his nights with a different woman almost every day during that Summer Camp." "He never told me", she said with a hint of sadness, "but I asked Nezzie and Tulie about it - - well…I cried to Nezzie and Tulie about it - - and they both said that Jondalar told them that he felt like I was his special little sister, so that he'd feel wrong about sharing pleasures with me. I guess that was intended to satisfy me, and I suppose that it did make me feel a little bit better at the time. But I'll tell you a secret, big brother…that's a big reason why I've been so motivated to try and excel at almost everything I do, whether it's hunting, running, being skilled with weapons, or skilled in the furs, and even trying to become a good healer. If I ever meet Jondalar again, I'm going to be such a complete woman that he'll have no choice but to share pleasures with me, over and over again!" She laughed to let Danug know that she wasn't being totally serious, but he had seen the look in his sister's eyes when she talked about Jondalar.

"So is that why you decided to come with me on this journey? Just to find Jondalar?" Danug asked. "Of course not", she flared. Then, calming down: "Well, not the only reason, anyway." And a smile once again played about her lips. "Was that the only reason you went on this journey?" Latie laughed, "To see Ayla again and try to share pleasures with her?" "OK, turnabout is fair play little sister, but no…I've felt the need to go on this journey for many reasons." He paused for just a moment, then added: "But if I happen to find Ayla and she wants to share pleasures with me, I surely wouldn't object!" They both laughed and then stared together into the dying fire, its glowing embers matching the warm brother-sister feelings they were sharing at that moment. They were both thinking about Ayla and Jondalar in their minds. As Latie thought about Jondalar, though, she began to experience the familiar feelings of arousal as she imagined herself sharing pleasures with him. As her pulse quickened and her body began to tingle with anticipation, she got up from the fire and said: "I think I'll go see if Darvelo is awake."

Danug had seen the signs of his sister's growing excitement - - her deeper breathing, the flush of arousal on her skin, the gleam in her eyes and the almost predatory look that came over her face when she was in the mood for pleasures. He smiled and shook his head as she walked away from him and towards Darvelo's sleeping place. He knew that whether Darvelo was awake now didn't really matter at all - - he would be wide awake soon enough.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The following day they continued their journey, gathering food and water, and hunting as needed. The land was rich and giving, and they all sharpened their hunting skills as they proceeded. As the days passed, they became good friends, and the close-knit group began to look upon themselves as almost an extended family, or a small cave. At times they talked together for hours as they traveled, at other times they were content to walk for long periods with just their own thoughts. After a fair number of days had passed without seeing a single other human, however, they began to look forward to meeting new people. Thus they were pleased when, on one fine afternoon, they spotted a long, thin line of smoke arising from behind a low hill in front of them. "That's got to be from a campfire", Ranec said, and they shifted their direction towards the smoke, and quickened their pace in anticipation of meeting some new faces. As they circled the base of the hill, they were suddenly aware of a small group of flatheads trying unsuccessfully to hide in the grasses and reeds at the base of the hill. As they approached, they saw that some of the flatheads, probably women and children, scurried away and tried to disappear as best they could into the too-short grasses there. But three flathead males suddenly stood fully up and faced them, with hands gripping sturdy spears featuring sharp, fire-hardened points. The Others instantly pulled their own spears out of their back frames and placed them on spear throwers to be instantly ready to hurl. After a period of mutual staring, the largest, grey-bearded flathead began to step forward. It was too much for young Darvelo, who had been extremely frightened by the sudden appearance of the flatheads. The brief standoff had only increased his apprehension, and the sudden movement by the large flathead finally broke his nerve. He let fly with his spear.

Brun grunted as the spear thrown by the young Other pierced his upper arm. He thought that he had moved quickly enough to avoid the hastily flung spear, but Davelo's spearthrower gave his spear much greater velocity and Brun had only begun to shift out of the way before the spear was upon him, and in him. He had also been betrayed by his own advancing years, and the rigors of this journey that they had been on for so long. Goov and Durc moved to Brun's side to protect their wounded leader, but that only seemed to further spook the hunters of the Others. When two more of the Others raised their arms into position to hurl their spears, Durc feared that the end of their journey had suddenly arrived in this violent way. But all of them, Clan and Other alike, were suddenly startled by a loud shrieking coming from a Clan female. Durc looked over to see, to his dismay, that his mate Ura, who had been watching the standoff from her hiding place and saw the wounding of Brun, was suddenly charging the Others in a blind, protective panic. She was heading directly towards Latie, who was the closest Other to where Ura had been hiding. Ranec reacted automatically, without even having the time to realize that it was an unarmed female Clan woman who was running towards them, and sent his spear flying into Ura's chest.

That was enough to send the other Clan women and children fleeing away from the scene of the fight, and to enrage the Clan males. Brun stood and pulled the Other's spear out of his arm with a roar. He and Goov prepared to attack the Others on a final, furious charge to try their best to provide time for the women and children to escape. Durc, on the other hand, knew instantly that a fight meant certain death for his small Clan. He was horrified that a spear had found his mate, but he hoped to have time to grieve for her later. At this moment his mind was focused on a way out of this disaster of a confrontation. Frantically searching for a solution, his mind suddenly cast itself back to his time as an infant and a small child, before his mother Ayla had been forced from the Clan. He remembered the sound games he used to play with his mother that always brought a smile to her face. She was the only one who had ever played the babbling word-games with him. And he suddenly recalled the one sound that had never failed to get Ayla's attention. The one sound that always brought her full attention to him, and always resulted in smiles and hugs from her. The one word that meant "Ayla" to him, even more than her actual name did.

Durc suddenly began calling out in his loudest, clearest voice: "Ma-ma! Mama, Mama, MA-MAAAAAAHHH!"

Everybody, Clan and Other alike, froze in place at the sound of the words coming from Durc's mouth. The Clan, because it was so shockingly unexpected. The Others because all of them instantly recognized that one of the Clan hunters was using a word for "mother" that closely matched their own. Everyone turned towards Durc, who was suddenly at a total loss as to what to do next.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"Did that young flathead just say 'Mama'?" Latie asked. Several heads nodded, but all of the Others kept their spears trained on the flatheads nearest them. They saw that the flatheads were also now totally focused on the one who had screamed out the unexpected words. Ranec, as the eldest in his company, felt the strongest need to try to defuse the tense situation. He recognized that, so far at least, none of his people had been injured or killed, but that one of the flatheads had been injured, and the one he had speared in the chest was still down. He glanced quickly at the downed flathead and saw that she was not moving, and was probably dead. He also noted, with sad surprise, that it appeared to be a female.

Ranec lowered his spear, and turned toward the flathead who had spoken. He looked at him closely for the first time and suddenly noticed that this flathead looked more human than the others. He suddenly wondered if this flathead was like Rydag, the mixed child that had lived in his own camp for a number of years. The mixed child who had never learned to speak, but who had learned to communicate quite well after Ayla had taught him Clan hand signs. But this Clan man had spoken. How was that possible? Ranec decided to try something. "Mama? Did you say 'Mama'?" he directed towards Durc. Now suddenly every eye, Clan and Other, was focused on Ranec. Durc was in a quandary. He desperately wanted to go to Ura, his downed mate, even though he believed that she was already dead. The spear sticking out of her chest was not moving at all, indicating that she was no longer breathing. He was also aware that Brun was expending great effort to hide the pain he was in from the spear wound he had taken to his arm, and that his wound needed tending to very soon if it were not to become mortal from loss of blood.

Therefore Durc turned his full attention to the strange, dark man who had said "Mama" back to him. He nodded his head, and repeated "Mama" himself. Then, quickly realizing that just exchanging a single word wouldn't move things forward quickly enough, he recalled Goov's story about Broud's encounter with the hunters of the Others during the hunt that had ended in such disaster for his cave. Goov had said that the leader of the Others had thrown down his spear, spread his arms and walked several steps towards Broud in what Goov thought was a gesture of peaceful intent, but that Broud had ruined by becoming belligerent. Durc drew a deep breath, gave a brief hand gesture that signaled the rest of his party to hold still, then threw down his spear, spread his arms and took a small step towards the Others. He froze when he saw a few of them grip their spears tighter and raise them, but then the dark-skinned one spoke again: "Wait! Stop! Can't you see that they don't want to fight?" cried Ranec. Danug replied: "The young one has dropped his spear, but what about the rest of them?" "Let me try something first", said Ranec, as he lowered his own spear gently to the ground, then rose up with his arms outstretched and took a step towards the young flathead. Then he smiled, thumped his chest with his hand and said: "Ranec. My name is Ranec."

When the rest of the Clan members, who had a lifelong habit of carefully reading and interpreting body language saw the Others start to relax, several things happened at once. Uba, the Clan's medicine woman, ran to Ura to see if there was anything she could do for the fallen woman. Brun expelled a great rush of air that he didn't even realize he had been holding in a loud grunt of pain and collapsed down to the ground. Uba rushed to Brun to begin treating his wound after discovering that Ura had indeed been killed. She forced her own grief aside and knew she had to be a medicine woman to the leader now, and grieve for Ura later. Goov, realizing what Durc had done and recalling the incident between Broud and the Others himself, threw his spear to the ground and moved forward to stand next to Durc, facing the Others with the one who he intuitively knew would be his new leader after this day, whether or not the change was formally made. Durc continued to watch the Others, not certain what to do at his still relatively young age, now that the immediate threat had seemingly passed. Goov therefore took the next step by moving slowly forward towards the dark man of the Others, and tapping his own chest, then said "Goov". Durc quickly did the same, and said "Durc". Suddenly one of the females of the Others began speaking in an excited voice, and both Goov and Durc wondered at the new name they heard in the midst of all of that woman's torrent of words.

"Ranec!" cried Latie. "Did you hear what that one called himself? He said his name was Durc". "Yes. And the other one said his name was Goov…so what?" Ranec replied. Latie turned to Danug to include him in their conversation. "Don't you remember that Ayla often spoke of her son named Durc?" All conversation suddenly stopped as the Others realized that every set of flathead eyes was now staring directly at Latie. But one set of eyes looked at her with a special intensity, and Durc began moving towards Latie in a more determined manner than he had before. The Sharamudoi began raising their weapons at what they perceived as a threatening stare from the advancing flathead. They did not immediately recall the significance of the names "Ayla" and "Durc" in their stressed condition in the same way the three Mamutoi did, or for that matter in the way that the group of flatheads did. But Latie did understand, and she made an intuitive leap of faith. Dropping her own spear she walked slowly and carefully towards the advancing Clan youth who had just named himself Durc. She extended both of her hands, palms up to indicate that she had no weapons and in what she hoped the young flathead would understand was a gesture of peaceful intent. She recalled the greeting gesture that Ayla had taught to the Mamutoi when she was teaching Rydag about Clan sign language, and she made it to Durc. When she saw a look of surprised recognition cross his face, she asked as simply and directly as she could: "Ayla, Durc, Mama?"

The Clan was thunderstruck, as much by the crude, but recognizable greeting gesture the woman of the Others had just made as by the three words she spoke that all of them recognized. They looked on in rapt attention as Durc nodded his head in an affirmative way and replied with the same three words, but spoken as a declaration of truth rather than as a question: "Ayla Durc Mama". Overcome with emotion, but still moving cautiously, Latie slowly moved closer to Durc with her still extended arms and carefully wrapped them about Durc in a warm hug. Durc remained rooted in place and did not return the hug, but he did not reject it either. No one had hugged him in that manner since his childhood. Latie stepped back, hoping that she had not broken some taboo by embracing the young Clan man, but she wanted to find some way to continue the personal interaction. She reached out one hand and touched Durc's chest, saying "Durc". Then touched herself and said "Latie". She then turned to Goov who had once again moved up to join and support Durc, greeted him with the hand gesture, touched his chest and said his name, then touched herself and repeated her own. After both Clan men tried to repeat her name as best they could, and she noted that Durc came far closer to the correct pronunciation than Goov did, she smiled at them both and returned to her small band.

Latie had intended to continue with the introductions, but she quickly realized that the small band of flatheads had other, more pressing concerns. Durc went to the fallen woman, and the Others quickly realized that she must have been someone of special significance to him…probably his mate. The other females and children also gathered around the dead woman, while the Clan woman who had been treating the wounded man, and the other flathead man named Goov, stayed with Brun. Latie recognized that the Clan woman was treating the wounded man, and she guessed that this one must be their healer.

The Others retreated a short distance away to give themselves, and the flatheads, some privacy. "Well," Ranec said, "we wondered what we would do if we ever ran across flatheads on our journey, but who would have ever thought it would turn out like this?" But the young Sharamudoi with them were still agitated, uncertain about what had just occurred. Latie, who was closest with them, briefly reminded them of the Mamutoi's history with Ayla and Rydag; that Ayla had told them of her mixed son Durc that she had been forced to leave with the Clan when she was expelled; and how Ayla had taught both Rydag, and anyone else in Lion Camp who was interested, about the Clan sign language. She repeated the greeting gesture that she had given to Durc several times to the group and suggested that everyone learn it and use it when approaching the flatheads in the future for any reason.

"You mean that we're not going to leave right away Latie?" asked Darvelo. The other Sharamudoi quickly agreed and urged an immediate departure. "How do we know that these flatheads won't come at us in the night and kill us all in our sleep? We killed one of their women, and wounded one of their men…and the biggest one at that", said Barono. The three Mamutoi could see that the Sharamudoi were nervous and frightened, having had no previous interactions with the Clan - - only stories fed to them around campfires about how flatheads were dangerous animals to be avoided or killed. Ranec, Danug and Latie all understood that having the agitated, armed hunters around wouldn't help matters at all, and would possibly lead to more bloodshed if any misunderstandings arose, as could be expected in the first meeting between any two different peoples. They stepped a short distance away and quickly conferred among themselves. They realized that all three of them wanted to remain close by the Clan people, to help if they could, and to at least try to learn more about Durc and his party.

Ranec again took the lead when they returned to the others in their group. "We understand that you don't want to remain here, and we even agree that doing so could be dangerous. But we intend to remain, at least for a short while, to see what happens." They heard groans of disbelief and disapproval coming from the others, but Ranec quickly continued. "We have a suggestion that we hope you will agree to", he said. "Why don't you go back to the place we camped last night? It was a pleasant enough spot, with water, food, and game nearby." Darvelo spoke up: "But for how long? How long do you plan to stay with these flatheads? What if something happens to you? What do we do then?" Everybody could hear the fear in Darvelo's voice as he spoke, his voice rising with each question. "Darvelo, I can't say how long we'll stay. That depends on us and on what the Clan people decide to do. They might make it clear they want us to go, or they might move away themselves. We just don't know. But we are going to stay and try to learn what we can about them, and to help if we can."

Then Latie spoke up: "I also have a request, at least as long as we are in the same vicinity as these people. Please refer to them as Clan people, or as Clan men, women or children, not as 'flatheads'. I know many of our people call them flatheads, and I have sometimes even used that term myself, but we learned from Ayla, and also from our own Mamut who spent some time among the Clan, that they are people, as human as you or I, or anyone else. The word 'flathead' is too often used as an ugly and insulting word among our people, and I for one don't want to hear it anymore." Everybody looked at Latie in surprise, even Ranec and Danug. But when the two Mamutoi men thought about it, they found that they agreed with Latie. And when the others said that they would at least try to avoid using the term, it was settled among them, and Ranec returned to the consideration of the issues that Darvelo had raised. "How about this? Every other day one of us", he said, gesturing towards himself, Latie and Danug, "will travel to your camp to let you know how things are going, and to tell you if we know how much longer we intend to stay. If one of us doesn't show up after three days, one of you can come back here and find us. OK?" The Sharamudoi looked at one another uncertainly, but realized that they were somewhat trapped by circumstances. They didn't want to stay close to the flatheads…er, the Clan people, but they also didn't want to split their band up and go their separate ways. So the idea of a hopefully brief stay nearby appealed to them as a reasonable compromise.

The whole Clan took notice when five of the Others began packing up and then departed, while the remaining three started making a camp and setting up tents nearby. But they quickly returned their attention to their own concerns. They had to bury Ura; tend to Brun; set up their own camp; feed hungry children; and decide what they were going to do about the extraordinary circumstance of having Others nearby who seemed to know Ayla, including a woman of the Others who had greeted them using their Clan signs and had…shockingly…embraced one of their own.


End file.
